


old yellow bricks

by aces_of_academia



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: (spoilers: it's not fu), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Eventual Happy Ending, Fainting, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sickness, guess who i'm bringing back to life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces_of_academia/pseuds/aces_of_academia
Summary: As his party travels to return to Xing, before he can become the proper Emperor of his country, Ling Yao has to deal with a lot – blistering desert treks, nightmares of moving shadows and sharp magenta eyes, midnight brawls against moonlit punching bags, rewriting his country’s classist laws, constant headaches, getting kidnapped, voices in his head – or, perhaps, it’s only one voice.In any case, ever since Ling left Amestris, there’s been something wrong with him, and it’s only a matter of time before the truth appears, undoubtedly unceremoniously, and drags his slowly-rebuilding world back into the past.





	old yellow bricks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sports_hell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sports_hell/gifts).



> (frantically shoves other WIPs under the rug) heeeyyyyy whats up y'all
> 
> i wrote this over three years ago as a gift for sports_hell (because greedling is her favorite, and despite fmab's ending being borderline perfect, there's no harm in a little alteration, especially to bring back her favorite character. plus i've never seen anyone else do it, and i've read a grand total of 2.5 fma fics that i've enjoyed, so this is my attempt to fix that). it's been sitting in my folder since august 2015, waiting to be beta'd, and now... i'm finally posting it. unbeta'd but edited very many times since august 2015, don't worry
> 
> title is from the arctic monkeys song, because something something emperor

 

_who wants to sleep in a city_

_that never wakes up?_

_blinded by nostalgia_

 

 

 

It’s sometime in midafternoon, there’s smoke and debris positively _everywhere_ , and the hopefully-soon-to-be-Emperor of Xing is starting to get hungry.

Of course, ending the plot of an evil homunculus, saving the lives of everyone in an entire country, and losing one’s best friend and literal soul partner in the span of a few hours might leave one a bit famished.  Releasing a tired sigh, Ling plants his elbow on his knee and rests his chin on his palm, silently debating whether or not mooching some money off the Elrics for food would be worth it right now.  Just a glance in the brothers’ direction tells him this is a bad idea; Ed and Al are currently surrounded by their friends, family (or what remains of it), and loved ones, all of whom are congratulating the younger of the two on getting his human body back.  Ling already went over and said his bit, of course, but he quickly felt the need to step back.  He _is_ kind of an outsider, after all; no matter how close he’s grown to the Elrics, he’s really only known them for six months.

Plus, there are more important matters on Ling’s mind at the moment.  Like figuring out a way to get some lunch, which will hopefully get his mind off the pulsing, aching _emptiness_ he now feels in his body – no, in his very soul.  With the sudden and unanticipated absence of Greed, it feels as if half of him is suddenly missing; like he’s been emptied out.  Or, maybe that’s just his stomach.

In any case, determined to take his mind off the hollowness in both his body and his stomach, he raises the tiny bottle grasped tightly in his left hand to eye level.  Ling still finds it a tad disturbing that the thick, shimmery red fluid is the liquefied version of a multitude of human souls.  It doesn’t seem _possible_.  Then again, he did spend months floating amidst a storm of wailing, disembodied entities, so it’s not quite as disconcerting to the prince as it probably should be.

Then, almost by accident, his gaze slides from the tiny bottled Philosopher’s Stone to his hand – or, more specifically, the back of it.

Ling almost winces when he sees the blank skin on the back of his hand, where the ouroboros tattoo that marked his body as the vessel of a homunculus used to be.  Without the near-black maroon ink engraved in his skin – another reminder that he is, and will forever be, without Greed – he feels sick.  It isn’t just the fact that Greed isn’t in his body anymore; the homunculus’s very soul has been extinguished.  He’s gone – dead.

Ling didn’t just lose Fu today – he lost Greed as well.

He frowns.  What’s that thing Ed is always yelling about?  Equivalent exchange?  Somehow, with the Philosopher’s Stone in his hand, and both Fu’s body at his feet and the emptiness inside of him, the phrase rises to the surface of his mind.  Maybe that’s why he lost Fu and Greed – and why he’s the one who ended up with the Philosopher’s Stone.  To gain something, some else of equal value must be given first.

Huffing out a sigh, he grips the Philosopher’s Stone in his fist and lets it fall to his side, out of sight and out of mind.  Equivalent exchange or not, two of his closest friends, both of whom should be at Ling’s side when he eventually ascends the throne, are now gone in the span of a single day.  It’s a bit pitiful, but he’s starting to run out of allies.  Pretty much the only one he has left is–

“My lord!”

Ah, there she is.  Ling glances up to see Lan Fan kneeling at his side.  Something about the sight of her comforts him – lets him know that he’s safe, no matter what.  A bit like having a guardian angel, except with more black clothes and sharp, deadly weapons.

However, his guardian angel has some surprises in store for him.

“I have a request to ask of you,” Lan Fan states, her gaze meeting his with nothing but solemnity in it.  Ling blinks at her seriousness and formality.

“When you become Emperor, please do not punish the rival clans.”

After a moment of contemplation, Ling turns away and shrugs.  “Sure thing,” he replies easily.  He had a feeling she would say something like that, and he must agree with her, especially with his current position.

“Wha – you agreed so easily?!” Lan Fan cries, blinking in surprise and watching him with shock evident on her face.  Ling manages not to feel hurt at the insinuation that he would punish his fellow countrymen, instead of helping them back from the dire position they were now in.

He sighs and stands up, slipping the Philosopher’s Stone into his pant pocket.  “I know what you’re trying to say.  I get it,” Ling says, giving his vassal a nod of gratitude.  Despite her implication, he’s glad that she’s thinking along the same lines as him, and that she noticed his lack of allies too.  Making amends with the other clans of Xing is the best move Ling can make at the moment – or rather, once he becomes Emperor.  Plus, he’s always found it a bit unfair that some clans have much more power than the others.

In other words, Ling knows he doesn’t have many friends now – but there _is_ something he can do to change that.  And, partially thanks to Lan Fan, he already knows just where to start.

Scanning the ruins of Central Command, it only takes Ling a few moments to find her.  She’s sitting with the Elrics, chatting animatedly with Alphonse and looking ridiculously happy.  It’s a bit hard to believe she’s an ass-kicking alkahestrian.  However, he’s seen her fight, and knows there’s a powerful warrior under her smile.  _A warrior who could be one of my most dependable allies,_ he thinks, a smile rising and falling on his face briefly at the idea.  Holding his resolve close to his heart, Ling starts walking.

“Hey, Chang girl!”

Mei glances up instantly at this – as does her tiny panda.  How does a panda end up that small in the first place?  He shakes the thought from his head and crouches down beside them, pulling the Philosopher’s Stone from his pocket.

“You sure are an idiot,” Ling says dryly, prompting a gasp of fury from both Mei and her panda.  “You got caught up in another country’s fight, and you didn’t even get the Philosopher’s Stone in the end.”  He holds up the bottle; the glass gleams in the midafternoon sunlight, as do its contents. The sight of it makes Mei seethe.

“The throne belongs to the Yao family now,” he says, unable to keep a hint of smugness out of his voice.  After all, the two of them came to Amestris for the same reason, seeking the same goal, and it was him who grasped it first.  He can’t help but feel a bit proud of himself and the people who have helped him reach his objective first.

At his words, Mei’s eyes begin tearing up, and she turns to the ground, her bottom lip quivering.  Behind her, Ed and Al exchange a glance, both looking uncertain.  Ling knows he has to get on with what he wants to say, unless he wants a knife in his face courtesy of Mei and two peeved, protective Elrics on his back.

“But don’t worry,” Ling adds, slipping the Philosopher’s Stone back into his pocket.  “The Yao family will take full responsibility for the safety of your clan.”

His words are met with blank stares of shock from Mei, Ed, and Al.  Shrugging, as if he didn’t just drop a bomb on them, Ling jabs a thumb at himself.  “I accepted a homunculus into my body, didn’t I?  Of course I’ll accept the Chang family, and all the other families too.”

Before the prince knows it, Mei and her panda both met his gaze with furious eyes – which are also streaming with tears.  Ling raises an eyebrow and draws back, surprised by her reaction.

“What’s with the face?” he asks, confusion and exasperation tinging his words.  “You don’t have to worry; the people of Xing always keep their oaths.”

“ _All_ the other families?!” Mei explodes angrily, raising her fists in the air.  Behind her, the Elric brothers exchange another look, this one filled with shock.  “Now you’re just being greedy, Ling Yao!”

Ling blinks in surprise at her words, staring at the tiny girl before rocking back on his heel and standing, one hand scratching the back of his neck.  “Heh… what can I say?” he sighs sheepishly.  “I guess he rubbed off on me.”

Sighing again, and deciding that’s as much of a ‘yes’ as he’s going to get out of the Chang heir, Ling bends over and picks up Mei easily with one arm.  Immediately, she begins thrashing in his grip.  “Alright, time to go.”

“Hey!” she cries, trying to elbow him in the side with her full strength – which is rather impressive, he has to admit.  “What do you think you’re doing?!  Put me down!!”

“You hurt your leg, didn’t you?” Ling replies calmly.  “Don’t try to push yourself too hard; we still have a desert to cross.”  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lan Fan walk over to a stretcher on the ground, occupied by a body with a white sheet over it.  _Fu,_ he thinks, his chest tightening.

She grips one of her grandfather’s limp hands and turns to Ling, calm determination on her face.  Awaiting orders; his eternally loyal vassal, as per usual.  Ling smiles at her confidently, and then turns back to the Elrics, who are watching the trio curiously.

“It’s time for us to go home,” Ling tells them, his expression shifting to seriousness.  “Back to our own country.”

“You’re leaving?” Ed repeats, shock on his face.

“Uh-huh!  We’re illegal immigrants, remember?  We should leave before things get too sticky,” Ling replies, a grin playing on his lips as he turns to walk away, one hand raised casually in farewell.

Ed nods, raising his fist into the air as some sort of salute.  “See you later, then!” he calls after them.  Al mimics Ed’s action behind him, with a smile instead of his brother’s scowl.

“Yep!  Until next time!” Ling replies, raising his own fist into the air.  Under his arm, Mei is crying again, reaching out for the Elrics as if she wishes to stay.  Behind him, Lan Fan bows, allowing the brothers she mistrusted so much one sign of respect before leaving.

As the odd trio begins to walk away, a pair of Briggs men carrying Fu’s stretcher for them, Lan Fan steps closer to Ling.  After a moment of uncertainty, she opens her mouth to talk – but he cuts her off.

“It’s alright,” he says, before she can speak.  “I’m okay.  Really, I am.”

Lan Fan gives him a long, contemplating look, which he calmly returns. He’s lying, of course.  Neither of them are okay, nor will they be okay, not for a while.  They both know it.  After a moment, however, instead of questioning him further, she leans back, a soft, comforting smile playing across her face.  “If you insist, my lord.”

 _We’ll be okay, as long as we stick together._   Ling, hearing her silent words, smiles gratefully in return, and increases his pace confidently.  Despite all the insane adventures he’s been a part of in Amestris, the prince can’t _wait_ to see Xing again.

And so, with a crying little girl under his arm and a bright future ahead, the only thing on Ling’s mind now is getting some food, maybe a glove for his hand, and something for the headache that’s started to ache at his temple.

 

~

 

According to the sun, it’s somewhere around three in the afternoon, and Ling knows for a fact that he is going to die very, very soon.

Thanks to the heat cascading on him in wave after wave, his body is drenched in hot winds and enough sweat to drown him.  He struggles to plant his foot firmly on the ground, knowing that one small step will either land him on his ass or face-first on the floor of the desert.  He’s slipped on the smooth golden sands three times already; thanks to that, there are now tiny pieces of grit stuck to the rivulets of sweat dripping down his face, making for a very uncomfortable mask of sorts.  In fact, the sand is _everywhere_ – caught in the strands of his hair, stuck in the fingertips of the new white glove on his left hand, trapped in the crevices of his clothes, and, of course, filling every spare inch of his shoes.  Plus, it’s all over his face.  Not giving a damn about the loud, whiny groan that comes out of his mouth, Ling only wishes for death – something to put him out of his misery before he fries in this miserable, scorching wasteland.

Almost in unison, his stomach growls and his head gives an aching throb.  Despite the pain they cause him, he ignores his headache in favor of the idea his stomach just gave him: of all the ways to die right then, the best of all would be by _food_.

Death by feasting… Ling can’t ever imagine a better way to go.  All the Xingese dishes that he longed for during his months in Amestris… all the noodles, and rice dishes, and the pork and beef…. He’ll even miss all the Amestrian dishes he’s grown accustomed to eating while in the country, like their overcooked potatoes and weird sandwiches and their chicken with the sauces… and the soups and stews… even their watery milk that Ed hates so much… then again, he would _like_ to die by food, but… Ed will yell at him… if he orders too much from the hotel menu….

He doesn’t have time to register his foot slipping under him, his ankle twisted painfully by the motion, before–

_Fwump!_

Blinking drearily, Ling huffs some scorching air out of his mouth, frowning as it blows sand into his eyes.  Of _course_ he fell over again.  Why is he not surprised in the slightest.  Behind him, he can hear Lan Fan calling out his name, but he doesn’t even have the strength to answer her.

“Food,” he manages to moan, unable to say anything else.  He just wants some food, and some shade… water would be nice, too… and maybe a camel?  Something to ride on… Ling isn’t sure he could take another step, not while he’s this drained.  All his limbs feel like liquid, his lungs are absolutely fried, and his head is _killing_ him.  Because of the dehydration, maybe?  He doesn’t even know.  Plus, thanks to the sun, and the sand that soaks up its heat, this godsforsaken desert is practically an oven.  There’s no way he can go on.

Somewhere next to him, he hears Lan Fan fall to her knees beside him, moving as quickly as possible to turn him over onto his back so he wouldn’t choke on sand or something.  As he’s turned over, Ling feels too exhausted to muster up any semblance of humiliation at the fact that he’s being handled like some kind of infidel.  He’s a prince of Xing, destined to be the next Emperor of his beautiful and glorious nation, who housed a homunculus in his body for seven months and helped save his neighboring country of Amestris from certain doom… and he can’t even walk across a desert.  It’s downright pathetic.

Not that he can bring himself to care about that.  The only thing that Ling’s mind can manage to conjure up at the moment is the thought of food.

“My lord, are you alright?”

Blearily, Ling opens his eyes – and instantly regrets it.  The blinding rays of the desert sun assault his retinas as soon as his eyelids slid open, and with a weak moan of pain, Ling rolls to his side.  His eyes squeeze shut, and he ignores the involuntary tears of pain that well in them – both from being blinded by that damn sun and from getting tiny grains of sand stuck in them.

“My lord?” Lan Fan repeats.

“Food,” Ling replies weakly, deciding to risk glancing sideways to eye her tiredly.  Thankfully, his vassal’s head has moved to block the sun, illuminating her outline with sunlight.  Ling blinks once, and then twice, the realization slowly dawning on him that she looks rather striking with her face illuminated by the golden light of the desert sun.  It causes her hair to gleam in just the right way, and accentuates the incredibly exhausted and irritated look in her eyes….

_Wait… huh…?_

Lan Fan sends him a look of barely veiled annoyance, and sighs as she moves to pick him up.  “If you were feeling this weak, my lord, you should have had the insight to say something about it, before you hurt yourself.”  Gently, she reaches around his back with her left hand and grips his shoulder–

“Ack!!” Ling yelps, practically jumping away from his vassal, all tiredness suddenly jolted from his body by the sudden presence of adrenaline.  When she clutched him, Lan Fan’s hand felt blisteringly hot to the touch, like… oh.  Her left hand – it felt like a hot metal pan.

Lan Fan blinks in shock, looking back and forth from Ling, who now gently probes his burnt shoulder, to her automail left hand, gleaming proudly in the desert sun.  Realization dawns in her eyes, quickly followed by horror as she throws herself forward.

“M-my lord, I am… so sorry!” Lan Fan cries, immediately dropping to her knees and bowing, her shoulders trembling – not with fear, thankfully, but guilt.  It slowly, slowly dawns on Ling that she’s probably irritated with him because her automail is definitely burning her intensely in this heat, while he has the nerve to be collapsing all over the place as she suffers quietly.  Of course, there isn’t a doubt in Ling’s mind that she didn’t realized her automail would burn _him_ when she went to help him.  Even if she was been irritated with him, the day Lan Fan willingly hurts him will be the day Edward Elric thoroughly enjoys a glass of milk.

“It’s fine,” Ling sighs, waving his hand for her to rise, if only to stop her from bowing to him.  After all they went through together in Amestris, it feels… wrong, and cheap, somehow, that she still feels the need to bow so deeply to him over such a simple mistake.  “I’m fine, I promise.  It was just the shock of it.”  He smiles to her, happy to see the guilt washing away from her features at his reassurance.

“Besides, I’m good to get up on my own,” Ling continues, shifting on the sand to push himself to his feet, which is harder than it should be with his exhausted limbs.  Lan Fan steps back, a look of amused endearment on her face at his insistence.  “You don’t – ouch!”

With a hiss, Ling falls back onto the golden sand as pain flares in his ankle – the same one he’d twisted when he fell down earlier.  From the feel of it, his ankle is most like suffering from a light sprain.  That will take – what, two or so weeks to heal?  He thinks?  Or – oh, right, or not.  Because–

“My lord?”

“I’m okay,” Ling says hazily, because something suddenly occurs to his pain and fatigue-clouded mind.  “It’s all cool – it’ll just heal in a sec… with that red lightning and all that stuff… because Greed–”

His voice drops off, as sudden and harsh as if it was shot.  Lan Fan blinks and looks away, unsure of what to say or do as Ling name-drops the person – homunculus, whatever – who has been the elephant in the room since Promise Day.  It’s almost as bad as when he mentioned Fu a day or so back.  The wounds their deaths left are just too fresh for both Ling and Lan Fan to handle at the moment.

They sit in silence for a moment before she finally speaks.

“If you don’t mind me helping, my lord, then let’s get you on the camel,” Lan Fan says, speaking gently as she walks behind him and carefully eases her right arm under his own.  Ling nods to her, and she sticks out her left hand tentatively, its metal still blinding in the desert sunlight.  The prince places his own left hand into hers without a hint of fear of being burned – thanks to the glove preventing his skin from having direct contact with her automail.

The day after their departure from the ruins of Central, Ling almost begged Lan Fan to let him use some of their meager amount of money to buy a glove.  Just a single glove – that was all he wanted.  He didn’t say why he wanted it, but she had understood perfectly well all the same.  However, Lan Fan refused, saying that he could wait another week or so until they got to Xing to get one.  Plus, any money they had would have to be used to get supplies for the harsh trek across the desert.  Ling pouted over it, and Lan Fan agonized and felt guilty over denying her master something so simple in the face of his logical reasoning.  Then, Mei offhandedly mentioned that she had a considerable amount of Amestrian money, given to her by Scar – _‘Just in case’_ the Ishvalan had said gruffly during their travels together, pressing a wad of paper notes into her tiny hands – and that she didn’t mind sparing a bill or two for him.  However, despite his reassurance earlier, Mei made him promised to help rebuild her small, powerless clan – had made him swear his life, in fact.  Though it peeved Lan Fan, Ling hadn’t minded at all.  He fully intended to help her clan in the first place, so if he didn’t end up doing it somehow, then she had every right to take his life.

And so, the three illegal Xingese immigrants wound up in a tiny shop in some eastern Amestrian town, browsing through the stacks of clothes in search of…gloves.  Ling quickly found a plain white pair, and paid the full price for just the left one, leaving the right glove in the confused hands of the shop’s owner.  The sight of a trio of Xingese teenagers and a tiny panda walking from a store, one of them clutching a single, freshly-purchased glove, had somehow been enough to spark to suspicion of a couple of Amestrian street police who’d been walking by.  Thus started the future Emperor of Xing’s long-winded run from the law alongside his half-sister and his loyal vassal, which finally ended once they reached the edge of the desert and the street police lost interest, fully assured that the trio would find their own way across the sandy dunes back into their own country.  As if they were stray dogs or something.

Ling snorts softly at the memory, barely noticing that Lan Fan has abandoned dragging his worthless hide across the desert to their camels and resorted to carrying him bridal-style.  Slowly, they near the camels – one of which is already occupied by Mei, thanks to her still-healing leg.  As they approach, a single thought goes through Ling’s mind, a product of his exhaustion and parched throat and aching head, and the grief that still has its claws in his heart.

_I wish Greed were still here with me._

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lan Fan give him a sad, concerned look, and he takes a moment to wonder if he said it out loud.  But then she sets him down gently on the camel, and despite the bad smell, the softness of the creature’s fur and the coziness of the bags that have been piled on soothe his mind, and his eyelids droop as his consciousness started ebbing away.

Managing to block out Mei’s comments on how weak and pathetic he is, followed Lan Fan’s stinging retorts, Ling falls into a painful, uneasy sleep; a last-ditch effort to escape the emptiness that still fills his mind, body, and soul.

 

~

 

Thanks to the loud buzzing filling the room, neither of its two occupants notice the clock on the wall striking seven in the evening, while the freshly-named Emperor of Xing clenches the handle of his chair with an iron grip and tries his best not to cry.

The tattoo artist sends the Emperor an amused look, entirely unaware of who the occupant of his chair is.  It’s not his fault he doesn’t recognize his brand-new ruler.  The poster with a picture of Ling’s face and a message proclaiming him as the next Emperor will be handed out tomorrow, leaving a shock in store for the tattoo artist the next day.  Plus, the ceremony to pronounce Ling Yao, twelfth Prince of Xing, as the new and esteemed Emperor of Xing featured many lords and high class businessmen, as well as many important military personnel and the other princes and princesses of the different clans in Xing – in other words, the high-class citizens, and almost no one of any of the other classes.  Ling wasn’t quite okay with this, but let it slide, considering what he has in store for his rule.

Mei was there, among the grown men and war generals, and while there was a hint of resentment and bitterness in her eyes for the duration of the ceremony, when Ling announced he would be personally seeing to the weaker clans of Xing being given the respect and power they deserved, she sent him a smile, true and bright.  After he mentioned that, it turned out she was a pretty useful ally in the political sense; she spent most of her time during the after party going around recounting the adventures they’d had in Amestris – without mentioning too much, of course.  Over the night, Mei made it abundantly clear that she and Ling and Lan Fan were all brave, noble warriors of Xing, who sacrificed much for their nation in order to return home and have Ling claim the throne.

He also made time to mention Fu’s heroic sacrifice; and to talk briefly about Greed, Ed, and Al, referring to them as, ‘my loyal friends of Amestris, who helped me in the most dire of situations’.  It was unnecessary to talk about them, especially at his induction ceremony, but Ling felt obliged to do so.  Even if it’s been a month since the Promise Day, he hasn’t forgotten their sacrifices and bravery – not by a long shot.

Along with the Chang princess, Lan Fan, of course, remained by Ling’s side during the entirety of the ceremony.  Whispers followed the Yao clansman’s vassal and her shining automail arm, bared thanks to the pretty cheongsam Ling had stumbled across and asked her to wear.  Thankfully, nothing anyone said about Lan Fan’s new arm was negative; the majority of people at the ceremony thought it was both impressive of the vassal to sacrifice her arm for her master and clever for them to acquire foreign technology, so they can study it and hopefully use it for their own amputees.

Lan Fan’s arm wasn’t the only new addition from their time in Amestris that attracted attention at the ceremony, however.  Although it was minimal, some people noticed and whispered about the single white glove the new Emperor wore on his left hand.  Some wondered if he, too, lost a limb and got automail during his time in Amestris; other speculated that he could’ve been branded, or received some awful scarring on his hand.  Luckily, no one actually bothered to ask Ling himself why he was wearing the glove; he was in no mood to explain his reasoning behind it, not while being stuck in those incredibly itchy robes, and _especially_ after he was forced to sweep his bangs up onto his head and away from his eyes, which was uncomfortable to him in a way he couldn’t explain.

It wasn’t just the robes and the hairdo that were rubbing Ling the wrong way, however.  Ever since they arrived in Xing – or perhaps before they came back home, Ling isn’t quite sure – he’s felt kind of… sick.  It’s just small things – an ache in the pit of his stomach that food can’t seem to satisfy, tremors in his limbs – and, most of all, headaches.  The sharp, jabbing pain in his temple has become unnervingly familiar, as is Ling showering Lan Fan with complaints about it.

No matter what, though, Ling desperately hopes nothing was truly wrong with him; there’s no way his people – nor the councils, generals, government executives, and other heirs of the throne – will accept someone in any kind of fragile condition as their new Emperor, Philosopher’s Stone or not.  And although Lan Fan’s reassurance that it’s just mild sun poisoning does plenty to comfort him, Ling couldn’t help but feel nervous for the duration of the ceremony.  What if it’s something worse than heatstroke?  And with all those important people in the room watching him for the ceremony, just waiting for him to slip up or show any kind of weakness so they could gauge his worthiness at being their next Emperor… well, to put it simply, Ling felt as though there was a giant weight hanging above his head, and it had been tied with a thread.

So, as soon as the post-ceremony party started to break up, Ling muttered an excuse to Lan Fan and retreated back into his chambers to pick out the most ordinary-looking outfit in his brand-new wardrobe.  Then, he snuck out of a window on the first floor, regular clothes on his back and a couple of knives tucked into his pants and sleeves, just in case.  He needed to get away, even if it was only for one night; needed to somehow try and replicate that feeling of freedom he’d experienced during all those months in Amestris, back when he could wander around cities and eat cheap food from greasy cafés and didn’t constantly have eyes on him every hour of the day.

A sharp prick in his hand snaps Ling from his thoughts, and he winces as it traveled up his arm, prompting a replying twinge of pain from his temple.  As he gives a small jump from the pain, the man at his side, who’s holding a long needle, a tiny vat of ink, and some other unidentifiable objects, grins apologetically.

“Sorry about that.  I’m trying to make it as painless as possible, but there are some things I just can’t help, you know?” the tattoo artist says cheerily, wiping away the blood leaking from Ling’s hand with a rag.  The Emperor doesn’t even try to holding his own smile back; this man’s natural charisma and happy energy are infectious.  Plus, besides that, Ling has finally fulfilled his objective, the one he’s been working towards for years: he has become Emperor of Xing and brought honor to the Yao clan.  It’s natural for him to be as happy as he is, especially when he’s finally away from all the stuffy robes and old business men.

Leaning back in the rickety chair, Ling casually puts his right hand behind his head and throws a glance at the tattoo artist.  “It’s all good.  So, how’s the tattoo business?  Do you get many customers?”

The man’s eyes light up at the questions, and for the next half hour or so, he goes on a long-winded story about a man who came in to have an enormous red dragon tattooed on his back, only to be told after getting the tattoo that the artist ran out of red ink beforehand and did it completely in bright pink.  Ling listens closely to the entire tale, laughing and commenting when he thinks necessary, and generally enjoys himself.  It feels nice to just sit back and listen to someone else, without having to worry about letting a hint of weakness show, lest it be pointed out and scrutinized for the whole damn world to see.

Of course, he’s still wrestling with other things – the emptiness in his body and mind at the absence of Greed which, while still painful, seems to improve every day.  The aching loss of Fu that haunts his every step and never leaves his mind, no matter what he does – although in hindsight, that’s getting better, too.  The gleam of sorrow that remains in Lan Fan’s eyes, even a month after her grandfather’s death.

All of these emotions still weigh heavily on his shoulders, but… just being outside the palace, with its multitude of prying eyes and its need for etiquette and formality, lets him relax, and drift into some semblance of a good mood.  People are only breathing down his neck this much because it was the very start of his rule, Lan Fan reassured him – soon enough, the people will come to trust in him, and the officials in the palace will get off his back.  But in the meantime, Ling will be jumping at every chance he can find to get out of the palace.

As the tattoo artist finishes up his story, with an ending that prompts a solid three minutes of laughter from Ling, the Emperor sighs and tips his head back to look at the wooden ceiling.  He feels a lot better now – much better than he felt an hour ago, stuck in the palace and desperate to escape, despite achieving his life-long goal.

“So, do you have any family?  Living in the capitol city of Xing must be expensive, especially if you’ve got loved ones with you,” Ling remarks, sending the man a curious look complete with a smile.

The tattooist huffs in amusement, cocking an eyebrow at the Emperor.  “Nah, no family.  Not yet, at least – I intend to meet my dream girl here!  There are plenty of beautiful women in this giant city; I bet that at least one of them will take a guy like me.”

“They totally will!  You’re a real nice guy,” Ling encourages, wincing as the man resumes his work tattooing Ling’s skin.  Why do hands have to have so many nerve endings?

“How about you?” the man asks, wiping Ling’s hand off again.  “You seem like a well-educated fellow; you got a special lady in your life?”

Raising his eyebrows at the suggestive tone in the man’s voice, Ling leans back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling.  His expression turns somber as he speaks.  “Well, I guess there’s this one girl.  She’s been by my side since we were kids, and she’s never let me down.  She’s sacrificed a lot, just for my sake.  So has the rest of her family – they’ve served mine for generations.  Even so, it was… it was kinda my fault, when… ah.”  Ling sighs, running a hand through his bangs.  “Her grandfather died recently, and it was pretty much my fault.  Of course, I lost someone that day too, but… that doesn’t change the facts.”

There’s silence, and Ling turns to the man when it stretches on.  The tattoo artist is staring at him, a blank look of shock on his face.

“What’s with the look?” Ling asks, a tinge of defensiveness in his voice.  He probably shouldn’t have said that much.  If this guy figures out who he is… well, then again, Ling _did_ make it pretty easy for him.  Who else has a family serving their own, other than a prince or a lord?  Ling curses his own foolishness as he watches the artist, waiting to see if the peace will collapse.

Thankfully, the guy only blinks, and gives a nervous little smile as he resumes his work again.  “Nothing, it’s just… geez.  Sorry about your friends; that sounds rough.  I mean….”  He chuckle, hints of disbelief and tenseness ringing in the sound of it.  “Man, who _are_ you, even?”

Ling smirks and settles back in his chair, glad that only a small amount of suspicion has been aroused.  “Just a guy who wants a tattoo,” he replies simply.  Even if he probably already said too much, this guy doesn’t need to know any more.  Even if he _is_ really friendly, if he discovers Ling is the Emperor, he’ll most likely freak out.

“Well that’s good, because you’re all set!” the artist says brightly, setting down his materials with a clank on his metal side table and giving the fresh tattoo one last wipe with his bloodied cloth.  Sighing happily, the man takes a moment to admire his handiwork.  Even Ling has to admit the man has done a spectacular job – it’s a perfect replica.

“Thank you,” Ling says sincerely, breathing a sigh of relief – this is another weight off his chest.  Another part of the healing process; another memorial to another fallen friend.  Another secret to hide from the palace and his people, lest they think of him as crazy or a thug or just plain strange.

“Sorry to intrude – if it’s nothing personal, would you mind me asking why you got that tattoo?” the man asks, nothing but good-natured conversation in his voice.  Ling smiles slightly at the sincerity.  As he stands from the chair, he reaches for his glove with another sigh.

“It’s nothing much.  Just something to honor a friend,” he replies wearily, pulling his glove over the fresh ouroboros tattoo on his left hand before departing from the store, the only thing on his mind being the scolding he’s about to get from Lan Fan when he returns to the palace.

 

~

 

A clock to his right tells Ling the time is 34:94 in the morning, but as the clock floats away and turns into a cluster of eyeballs, he decides against taking its time as fact.

Shadows warp at his feet, shifting and winding into themselves, a masterpiece of ever-changing darkness.  All around, stretching out into an endless abyss, is nothing but blackness in varying degrees of gloom.  It’s just the Emperor, the shadowy darkness, and the cloud of eyeballs still floating above him, eerie and unnatural.

A sense of danger suddenly clutches Ling, reverberating down to his very soul, forcing him to hunch in on himself out of primal fear.  It’s a feeling similar to when Greed first possessed him.  This is bad – he’s in trouble.  Somehow, he can tell; he has to escape from this place.  However, while he stuck floating in this strange space, unable to tell where up or down is, or whether he or any of this is even real, he has no way of knowing if he even _can_ escape.  His vision is strangely limited, blurred at the edges and hazy in general, and the whisperings of the shadows below are in no language Ling has ever heard, even with his extensive royal education.

It hits him then, with no real weight behind it, even though this has never happened to him before.  Ling blinks, shocked in a muted sort of way, as he realizes that he’s dreaming.

Well, that certainly makes sense.  Though most of the time, he never realizes he’s dreaming while he does it.  There’s some name for it – he can’t remember what it is, but what Ling does remember is that apparently, if you know you’re dreaming while you’re doing it, you can control what happens in your dream.

A bubble of excitement rises in his chest, pushing his senseless fear aside as a smile plays across his lips.  Now _this_ is exactly the kind of break he’s been looking for.

Over the past two weeks since he became Emperor, Ling has been run absolutely _ragged_.  He’s been dashing about organizing council meetings, giving couples and newborn babies his blessing (for whatever reason), reading over his plans to rewrite the laws that tie down the lower-class clans and prevent them from having any power, sparring with Lan Fan to keep his body in good shape, and, finally, trying to find a new vassal.  There are plenty of worthy people for the job, of course, but Ling… well, he wants his new vassal to do more than just protect him.  While Lan Fan has been and is still his friend, who sticks by his side no matter what, Fu was the one who gave the best advice and helped guide Ling down the best path possible.  Ling wants someone who will balance out Ling and Lan Fan’s current duo and become a true companion; so far, all the possible candidates he’s met simply want to dedicate their minds and bodies wholly to the Emperor.  Either that, or they want a chance to heroically sacrifice themselves for their ruler and have their name passed down throughout history.  Either way, it doesn’t sit well with Ling.

Besides all that, he’s had quite a time so far trying to hide his tattoo from everyone – save for Lan Fan, of course.  She gave him an earful that night two weeks ago, when he came back with his hand throbbing, the black ink depicting the ouroboros stark against his pale skin.  And even throughout her rant about his recklessness, which was driven mostly by her worry, there was a hint of sorrow in her eyes that – for once – wasn’t for her grandfather.  She understood why he got the mark, and the knowledge pained her; he could see it in her eyes, clear as day.  Lan Fan’s scolding aside, there have already been several incidents in which others came close to discovering Ling’s new tattoo.  Since news of the Emperor getting a secret tattoo of a strange, foreign mark on his hand would likely result in a wide variety of probably-not-good reactions from his citizens, each almost-reveal of his ouroboros adds more and more stress to the Emperor – which, obviously, is something he definitely does not need at the moment.

The bottom line is, Ling needs some kind of break.  Sure, his escape to the tattoo shop was nice, but that was brief, and before the pressures and stress of being Emperor truly came to rest on his shoulders.  Now, he has no chances whatsoever to slip away from all the chaos of being ruler.  Therefore, he needs some kind of respite, even if only a small one.  Desperately.

Closing his eyes and pursing his lips, Ling imagines a giant feast spread before him, with Lan Fan and Greed and Fu and the Elrics and all the people he loves, from both Xing _and_ Amestris, beside him, ready to chow down and have a great time.

Then, there’s a stab of pain, and he freezes.

Instead of a massive feast and all of his friends, new and old and dead, pain pricks the back of Ling’s left hand, and his eyes flutter open, reminding him of the dark abyss with its whispering shadows he remains stuck in.  His hand rises up in front of his face, panic starting to pulse through his veins.  The ouroboros tattoo he received two weeks ago – instead of black, it’s now a deep maroon color.  The color the original one on his hand was.

“ _Greed._ ”

Ling whispers the name, fear and joy and fury and absolute terror rising up in him, a hurricane of emotions swirling in the pit of his stomach.  This is a dream.  This is a dream, he realizes again, so anything is possible – even talking to Greed again, if only for a few minutes or so.  He won’t be the _real_ Greed, but – he’ll be _something_.  Something, after all these months of aching grief and desperately missing his best friend and soul partner.  Slowly, Ling raises his right hand to touch the tattoo, just to feel it, just to see if it’s real, if Greed is really–

_Huh?_

A frown appears on his face, and his eyebrows crease as he feels the tattoo.  It doesn’t feel like part of his skin, or like a brand or an imprint, even.  No; the ouroboros mark feels soft, cold – like liquid, the dark, rich maroon color of it so much like blood–

Blood–

It wells out of the back of his hand, out of the ouroboros mark that may not’ve even been there at all, coating both his hands in the liquid that reeks of death, rising up, spattering his arm, washing over his legs, climbing up his chest, spraying into his eyes so he can’t see anything but red and the inky shadows, coating his hair in its awful color, rising up, drowning him–

Ling gasps, thrashing where he floats, wherever he was, spitting the vile taste from his mouth and wiping it from his eyes and shaking it from his clothes and dragging his nails down his skin, trying to get it off, get it off get it off _get it off_ –

“ _My lord…._ ”

A shiver travels down his spine, and Ling desperately scrubs at the blood in his eyes, trying to see, to do _something_ – anything to get the stench of death off his body and out of his mind, so he may see what’s in front of him.  Ling blinks his eyes hard, his vision still red and black – but now there’s some gray… and a face he still knows as well as his own….

Recognition forces him to blink, and a jolt goes through him.  He stares in shock.

“ _Fu,_ ” Ling whispers.

He’s there – Fu is _right_ in front of him, floating before the Emperor in the strange black abyss.  He’s in the same clothes Ling last saw him in; the loose black clothes with tight fingerless gloves and sturdy boots, a shiny black chest guard, and the white belt tied around his waist.  His pale gray eyes are wide as he stares at Ling, his mouth just barely open.  Ever so slightly, the old man trembles.

“ _Fu,_ ” Ling manages to say again, anguish in his voice.  There’s so much – so many words he needs to say, so many thank-you’s that must be spoken, last goodbye’s that were cut off by the vassal’s sudden death, advice that needs be asked–

Fu makes that choking sound again, and as Ling looks at him, all the words he’s trying to scrape together vanish in his throat.

The front of Fu’s outfit is darkening, the black turning blacker, and Ling _chokes_ , staring at his former vassal in horror as blood – blood wells up slowly, covering his clothes, turning his white sash a bright, horrible red color.  It drips from his mouth, too – red on his face, staining his moustache, dripping off his chin into the back abyss.  And – it’s coming from his eyes now, welling up like scarlet tears and sliding down his face.  A terrible panic fills Ling – it’s like he went back in time, it’s the Promise Day all over again – he reaches out towards Fu, to help him, to do something, _anything,_ when there’s a flash of silver–

_Shnk!_

Ling watches, horror-struck, his bloodstained hand still outstretched, as Bradley’s sword stabs through Fu from the back, spraying a fresh coat of blood all over the Emperor’s body.  Ling is helplessly silent, his mouth open in a last plea that died as soon as Fu drew his last breath.  He does nothing as Fu fell away into the darkness, frozen as the shadows swallow up his body and Fu disappears.

Fury and terror and every terrible emotion he can name fill Ling’s body, and he turns away from the abyss, ready to face Bradley and take his life for what he has taken from Ling and his subjects – his _friends_.

But it is not Bradley who holds the sword in front of him.

Ling’s chest tightens, and he can only stare as Greed laughs.

The homunculus wearing the Emperor’s own skin howls with pleasure, flicking the sword with his wrist to get some of Fu’s blood off of it – his face is splattered with it, too.  “ _Why do you look so sad, brat?_ ” Greed asks, his pointed teeth parting into a demon’s smile.  Ling stares, unable to move, to talk, to _breathe_ – Greed just killed Fu, _killed_ him; this is… this – it’s some kind of twisted nightmare, he has to get out, get away from this abyss, and get away from this awful, evil imitation of his dear old friend.

Greed smirks at the horrified expression on Ling’s face.  “ _Aw, what?  You upset?_ ”  He licks his lips, Fu’s blood catching on his tongue and staining it scarlet.  Every word from his mouth is like a sharp stone, digging into Ling’s skin and burying into his heart.  “ _Who needs a worthless vassal like that, who can’t even withstand a puny sword?_ ”

Fury flares up in Ling, so sudden and blatant that somehow he rushes forward, a snarl set on his lips–

“ _Careful,_ ” Greed hisses, pressing the sharp tip of the sword into the underside of Ling’s chin, stopping the Emperor in his tracks.  “ _Don’t wanna follow him down there, do you?_ ”  His slitted magenta eyes – _Ling’s_ eyes, but not – flicker, glancing down at the endless darkness below.

Ling snarls, his body trembling, and spares a glance below their feet.

He gasps – the blood from before, the blood from Fu – it’s everywhere, hovering in droplets colored that horribly bright red, floating there, waiting, waiting, _waiting_.  Wait, no; there’s something else in the blood… something black…. A pupil?

Then the blood – it isn’t blood, not at all; there are slitted pupils like shards of darkness rolling up in them, and then the eyes open – long, harsh eyes, all glaring up at them, the sight of them so terrifyingly familiar–

Ling immediately looks up at the cluster of eyeballs from before that he forgot about – they’re spreading out now, their magenta irises rolling and glaring all over the place.  A gasp chokes up in his throat, and horror fills him at the sight of it all.  Before him, Greed chuckles; the sword has vanished somewhere in the abyss and replaced with his Ultimate Shield.  The index finger of his right hand now rests under Ling’s chin, its needle-sharp claw digging into the Emperor’s skin.

“ _Ah, well; it’s time for you to go now, anyways,_ ” Greed says nonchalantly, sighing as he speaks, as casually as if he just cancelled a lunch date.  Ling’s gaze fly back down, and to the sides – all around, to the eyes that are spreading out and around into the endless, ancient darkness.  Slowly, they encircle the Emperor and the homunculus, winding around them, enclosing them in their dreadful magenta glory.  Then – the shadows in every space between the teeth part, and from the black abyss sprouts teeth, teeth of icy whiteness and promises of death–

“ _Didn’t you know?_ ” Greed muses, his finger drawing blood from Ling’s chin.  The Emperor of Xing, trembling where he is, tears his eyes from the nightmare scene around him and slowly turns back to the twisted, malicious version of his old friend.

Greed’s teeth split into the proud smile of a demon.

“ _I never really needed friends – never really wanted them, either._ ”

And then Greed draws back his left hand, the ouroboros glinting on his hardened gray skin, his claws gathering together into a single sharp spike, and Ling doesn’t move, _can’t_ move, as the claws thrust towards his chest, the laughter of a devil in his ears and the white teeth and scarlet eyes of a prideful monster dancing in his eyes as Greed drives his hand into the Emperor’s chest and rips out his heart–

“ _DAMMIT – WAKE UP!!_ ”

A gasp of fear ripping itself from his throat, Ling shoots up in bed, eyes wide and body shaking furiously.  A stab of agony strikes his head as soon as he rises to consciousness, prompting from him a wince of pain.  His hand – his left hand – is twisted into his nightshirt just above his heart, which is beating at an alarming rate.  A drop of sweat that feels too much like blood trickles down the side of his face.  After taking a moment to calm his trembling limbs, Ling focuses on unclenching his hand and releasing his nightshirt from the death grip he has on it.  In his vain attempt to calm down, he tries to steady his breathing: in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in….

Ling sighs heavily, some semblance of exhausted calmness settling down on him, and runs a hand through his unbound hair.  A dream.  It was just a dream.  He’s safe – he’s in Xing, in the royal palace, with Lan Fan in the next room.  He’s definitely not in Amestris.  Greed is… gone, and so are all the other homunculi.  The Promise Day has passed.  He’s safe.  It was just a dream – not real.  Definitely not real.

He knows that – Ling knows it was all a dream, but for some reason, his heart won’t slow in its fast-paced beat, nor will the awful pounding in his head subside.

 _Maybe it’s because that was the first time I’ve seen or heard Greed since the Promise Day,_ he realizes blearily.  In all his other nightmares, he’s seen Fu multiple times, and Bradley, and that Pride monster.  He’s even been ripped apart again and again in his dreams by the screaming red souls that were a part of Greed’s Philosopher’s Stone.  The memory of the day Greed first possessed him, shattering his bones and bleeding his skin dry over and over again, still haunts him months later.

But tonight is the first night Greed made an appearance in his nightmares.

Ling groans and drops his head into his hands as it continues to throb.  And that voice – right before he woke up, he could’ve sworn he heard someone shouting.  Of course, when he thinks back now, the memory of it is hazy, the dream itself already fading from him mind as well.  And although Ling is grateful for that, he still wishes he knew who called out to him.  It wasn’t Lan Fan – she’s still in her own room, he can tell from her chi – so who was it?

His chest aches, and as he sits there unmoving, his heart races on and on.  Ling winces in pain, moving one hand from his face to massage his chest, right above his heart.  His head pounds agonizingly as he shifts.

“What the hell is _wrong_ with me?” he mutters, breaking off to gasp in pain as he continues to massage his chest.  The pain won’t go away – it just won’t leave him alone.  No matter what he does, his head still throbs, and his heart still beats faster than it should, spurred by the grief and horror of seeing Greed for the first time in so, so long – and by what the nightmarish version of his old friend did.

Giving up every other option, because nothing else is working, Ling strides into his bathing chambers, strips off his sweat-sodden nightclothes, and lies soaking in his bathtub until the lights of dawn break the horizon.

 

~

 

It is exactly 4:54 in the afternoon – plus twelve seconds – according to the clock on the wall of the stuffy council room, and the only thing Ling knows for sure (aside from the time) is that he wants to leave as soon as possible.

A general to his right – a large, uptight man with broad shoulders and a massive goatee named Chen – is currently rattling off information about the Amestrian armies positioned precariously in the deserts near Xing which, apparently, have finally been called back, after being stationed there for eight months.  Although a new Fuhrer ascended to rule Amestris just a week after Central City was almost leveled, there was so much chaos and general uproar for the following months afterwards that apparently, the new Fuhrer didn’t have time until just recently to pull back his armies.

Despite the overall positive message of the general’s report, including the fact that Ling’s citizens are now definitely safe from any kind of attack from Amestris – not that he thought they would attack in the first place, what with Bradley gone and the homunculi dead – the Emperor of Xing simply can’t scrounge up the energy to be interested in what Chen is saying.  He’s just… far too exhausted.  Two almost-sleepless nights in a row, thanks to nightmares of screaming souls, whispering voices in his head, and Fu’s body at his feet do that to a person, even if they’re the Emperor of a huge nation.  Besides that, even if it’s been a week since that one awful nightmare with Greed, he’s still wary of sleeping at this point, out of fear of the images his unconscious mind will likely be assaulted with.

Plus, Ling is starting to get a pounding headache.  _Again_.

“Emperor?”

Ling curses himself for drifting off and sits up straighter as Chen addresses him.  “Are the contents of my report sufficient?”

He groans internally and is about to say yes to the general, and disband this meeting as fast as he possibly can, when there’s a voice beside him.

“My lord.”

Almost tearing up at the sound of his vassal’s voice, Ling turns to see the ever-comforting sight of Lan Fan kneeling at his chair’s side, her red, white, and black mask hiding her face completely.  Only the gods know how she’s able to appear so swiftly and silently; Ling can even hear a few of the generals surrounding him murmuring under their breaths in shock at seeing her.  Suppressing a smile, Ling nods his head at Lan Fan.

“How may I help you?” he asks, motioning for her to rise.

She does so.  “Your appointment to meet with the Chang heir is in five minutes.  You should not keep her waiting, your Highness.”

Letting the full-blown grin he’s trying to hide slip out as a tiny smile, Ling nods to her again, as gratefully as he can.  His meeting is in at least an hour, not five minutes.  He turns to his council, his face resuming its formal mask.  “We will resume this meeting tomorrow, at one in the afternoon.  If there is any news between now and then, add it to your reports.  I shall see you then.”

With a wave of his hand, the generals disperse, each giving the Emperor a bow before wandering away, talking amongst themselves.  Ling watches them go, waiting for them all to abandon the room before turning to Lan Fan, his stiffly raised shoulders finally slumping in exhaustion.

“Thank you, so much,” he says sincerely, talking in Amestrian.  Just in case there are any stragglers listening in, or… well, there’s a long list of reasons.

Lan Fan dips her head, the smallest and yet most sincere of smiles on her lips.  “You looked as though you were about to drop onto the table and start snoring,” she replies, humor in her voice.  Walking slowly, they make their way out the huge, well-lit war council room and into the ornamented palace hallway.

“Trust me, I was about to,” Ling groans, running a hand through his hair.  A few strands of his bangs spring free, flopping over his eye.  Somehow, having part of his field of vision covered feels much better to him than having his bangs pulled out of his face.  Plus, the tight ponytail he’s forced to wear makes his scalp ache.  Maybe that’s why he’s been getting so many headaches recently.

There’s silence as the jubilance of the mood falls, and Ling knows that Lan Fan is probably contemplating whether wrestling him into bed to get some rest before meeting with Mei would be worth it or not.  He stiffens; the last thing he wants is to have any more nightmares, especially right before going to see his half-sister.  Then again, fighting with Lan Fan definitely isn’t worth it.  So he waits in silence, too tired to try and escape from her or to think about the consequences of anything anymore.  Finally, she speaks.

“Do you have another headache?”

Oh, right.  He almost forgot about the jabbing pain in his head.  “Yeah, but it’s not that bad,” he says, massaging his temple with one finger.  It’s a lie; his headache steadily grew worse over the duration of the meeting.  Not that he had say anything.

Lan Fan watches him warily out of the corner of her eye, and Ling has to wonder whether she can tell if he’s lying or not.  It seems like something she’d be able to do.  Even as kids, Ling would always shout excitedly about how Lan Fan had superpowers – which, back then, was just her chi sense – but now, Ling has to wonder if she’s developed something else.  A ‘the-Emperor-is-lying-and-being-a-little-baby-and-probably-needs-sleep-as-soon-as-possible’ sense.

“Dammit, I’m so tired,” Ling mutters, finally realizing the absurd absentmindedness of what he’s thinking about.  Maybe he _should_ try and take a nap.

“You should get some rest before meeting with Miss Chang,” Lan Fan tells him, her voice firm in a way that lets him know it’s not a suggestion.  And that she can force him to get into bed if she wants to, even if he ends up just lying there not doing anything at all.

“I know; I just don’t want–”

Black spots sweep over his vision, and in an instant Ling feels all the strength retreat from his legs, leaving them limp and completely powerless as he suddenly pitches forward.

Lan Fan makes a noise of alarm and instantly catches him, holding him in her arms as if he weighs nothing.  Ling’s shoulders tremble and he blinks rapidly, attempting to wipe the darkness from his vision as he clings to consciousness.  Gently, ever so gently, Lan Fan sits him on the floor, keeping him upright with steady hands.  With shaking hands, Ling tries to keep himself propped up by placing his palms on the freezing floor.  A shiver travels up his right arm as his hand comes in contact with the cold, but his left hand, with its glove between his skin and the ground, feels nothing.  Ling focuses on the icy feeling of the floor under his palm, driving off the darkness on the edges of his vision.  There is silence as he tries to calm his racing heart and fast breathing, Lan Fan watching in quiet concern.

Finally, after a moment, she speaks up.  “Perhaps it would be wise to hold off your meeting with Miss Chang,” Lan Fan says worriedly, eyeing the Emperor apprehensively.

Ling catches her gaze and, as he sees the concern in her eyes – not just for her Emperor, but for her friend – he gives a tired nod.  “Okay; you can tell her to come see me tomorrow, before the war council meeting.  I need some food, and rest.”

“A lot of rest,” Lan Fan adds, hooking one arm under his elbow.  Gently, she helps him to his feet, keeping one arm around one of his own.  Whether she does it out of concern of him falling over again, or to keep him from running away from his bed and the time-out that awaits him, Ling doesn’t know.  At this point, he doesn’t care much; the fact still stands that she is here, and she will support him.  That is all he needs.

They walk slowly to his chambers in the back of the palace, carefully making their way up flights of stairs and through the unnecessarily huge, yet beautifully carved, doors leading to his rooms.  First is his foyer, with comfy sitting chairs and a decorated fireplace.  Ling moans, reaching longingly for his cozy chairs and the heat of the fireplace that makes them even more warm and snug.  But Lan Fan shoots him a look that says, _‘I refuse to let you fall asleep in one of those chairs because we both know you’ll get a crick in your neck and complain about it endlessly later on’_ , and drags him away.

Through another set of giant doors, they arrive in the Emperor’s bedroom suite.  A giant four-post bed sits in the center of the room’s back wall, with huge windows on either side to let the afternoon’s golden sunlight stream in.  A door to the left leads to the bathing chambers, where a huge bath with far too many settings and its own plumbing system wait; while a door on the right wall leads to Ling’s personal sparring and weapon hall, with a multitude of swords, knives, lances, and other pointy metal objects awaiting him.  A door in that room leads to Lan Fan’s chambers; Ling insisted on having her on the same floor and only a door or two away from him, in case someone gets the foolish idea into their head to try and kill the Emperor in his sleep or something equally ridiculous.  Thankfully, nobody has tried anything like that so far, but that’s no guarantee no one will in years to come.

At long last, Lan Fan stops beside Ling’s bed and, as softly as she possibly can, helps him lie down on the mattress.  He gives a grunt of appreciation, a tired smile stretching across his lips as he settles into the outrageously comfy bed.  Cracking an eye, Ling almost snorts at the sight of Lan Fan pulling up the covers for him, tucking him into bed with a soft smile on her face.  If he didn’t know any better – which he does – Ling would definitely crack a maternal joke on her or something of the sort.  But at this point he’s far too tired, and receiving a glare from Lan Fan takes more endurance than running a marathon, so he wisely keeps his mouth shut.

“Get some sleep, my lord,” she murmurs, concern and something akin to amusement in her voice.  Ling gives a tired yet grateful moan in response, and she smiles before retreating to her own chambers, shutting the door to the weapons room quietly behind her.

As soon as Lan Fan is gone, Ling’s eyes open, fixing the ceiling of his room with a piercing stare.  He’s still tired, sure, but there are far too many reasons for him not to sleep, and they continue to outnumber the reasons why he should.

One of them, for instance, is his fear of seeing Greed again.  Ling groans and swipes a hand over his eyes.  It’s ridiculous, and he knows it, but the idea that he might see his old friend kill Fu again – or Lan Fan this time, or Ed – absolutely breaks his heart.  More than that, it keeps his eyes wide open, forcing him to stay awake even when his limbs are heavy and his mind won’t function properly.

Unable to sleep because of simple nightmares.  Maybe he really shouldn’t be Emperor of Xing.

Ling scowls and turns over on his bed.  No; he can’t think like that.  He _knows_ his rule will bring great change to the country of Xing – long-awaited change that will benefit his people for generations to come.  He can endure a sleepless night or two, for the sake of his people.  After all, he’s doing all of this for them – so that they may live better lives in the future.  Even if he falls apart in the long run, hopefully they will end up better than they were before.

So the Emperor of Xing lies in his bed, unmoving, and keeps his eyes wide open as the day falls deep into night.

 

~

 

According to the clock beside Ling’s bed, which he has long since abandoned, it’s sometime around one in the morning when the Emperor of Xing goes into the next room to bruise his knuckles and get a nice, steady burn in his lungs.

After tossing and turning in his oversized bed for nearly three hours, he decided that sleep was simply not going to find him.  Or possibly, it was due to his own internalized resistance to it; his nightmares have been getting more and more vivid, and now include Lan Fan and Ed, as he feared they might.  The ways they’re included in his dreams… well, Ling wants to avoid thinking about it in his waking hours as much as possible.  Because ever since the Promise Day, as soon as his head hits the pillow, he’s at risk of those nightmares penetrating his unconscious mind and ripping him back into the waking world in as cruel a way as possible.  So now, over time, he has gradually become accustomed to not sleeping.  It’s like he’s been conditioned by his own nightmares so that he won’t sleep anymore.  Despite how fucked up that is, Ling can’t find it in himself to care.  So long as he isn’t having nightmares, he’ll stay awake for as long as he physically can.

However, it isn’t his built-up sleep resistance that keeps him awake tonight.

Moving as silently as possible, Ling creeps into the weapons room, the moonlight pouring in from the windows casting his shifting shadow across the worn wooden floor.  After getting out of bed, he pulled off his nightclothes and slipped into a loose pair of pants – similar to the ones he’d travelled to Amestris in – and abandoned his glove on the sheets, as well as the idea of a shirt.  He knows he’ll just end up tearing both of them off.  Now, the light of the moon makes his bare shoulders shine silver and his tattoo stand out starkly on his skin as he makes his way over to the row of punching bags propped up in the corner.

Heaving one onto his shoulder with barely more than a silent grunt, Ling walks over to the center of the room and contemplates whether or not he should go absolutely wild on the punching bag in his own room or in here.  Since the sound of him beating a punching bag to death might wake up Lan Fan in the next room – and the gods know she needs sleep, considering all the stress she’s been under since he became Emperor – Ling opts to drag the bag into his own room.

Moving quickly, his bare feet silent on the wooden floors, he slips out of the weapons room and back into his bedroom.  Ling closes the door as silently as he can, and when he deems it firmly shut, he makes his way to the center of the room.  Lan Fan would undoubtedly skin him if she found out what he’s doing – mostly out of worry for his wellbeing, of course.  She’s been casting him more and more anxious glances as of late.  He hates making her worry, but he can’t quite help it; it isn’t as if he chooses to have nightmares or pounding headaches all hours of the day.

Tossing the rope up into the rafters and dropping the weight onto the ground, Ling turns and faces the punching bag.  His eyes open, wide and unblinking, and his hands curl into fists.  For a moment, he simply stares at it, the tension in the air nearly tangible.

And then, the dam breaks.

His fist swings around, fast as a bullet, and slams into the side of the punching bag with a swift right hook.  As soon as the loud, smacking _THUD_ rings out from the impact, all of the rage and sorrow and anxiety that have been trapped in his mind spring free, pouring through his body into every crack and crevice, filling him until there’s nothing left but raw emotion and an intense need to _move_.  Repositioning himself, Ling steps forward with his left foot, spins around backwards, and rams the punching bag with his right heel in a wicked back spinning kick.  He relishes the dull ache in his foot, and as he swings around and hits the bag again with a left back fist, he bares his teeth, silent and furious.

It’s both amazing and scary what repressing one’s emotions did to a person – especially if they just suffered a hard loss or two and is then forced into a position of power, where the slip of any emotion signifying weakness could result in their removal from the throne.

A hiss escapes from his teeth as Ling plants a series of punches into the bag, darting around the swinging object as he hits it.  Cross, jab, cross, jab, cross, jab, cross, jab – on and on, again and again, as many times as he can do it.  His hands already ache from hitting the tough material so many times, and as his fist smashes into the punching back yet again, a jolt of pain shoots up his arm – and his head gives a strong twinge in response.

Ling stops short, his brain only registering the pain it just felt briefly before he dives into a set of kicks.  Left roundhouse, right back spinning kick, left knee, right roundhouse, left sidekick, right roundhouse with his knee – he hits the bag in every way he knows how, his movements flowing and endless and as natural as breathing.  The moonlit silver form of the Emperor dances on and on into the night, bruises blooming on his body and sweat dripping down his skin as he hits the bag over and over and over again.

Once for Greed, his first and last lie echoing in Ling’s ears before he vanished forever.  Again for Fu, and the horrifying amount of blood that sprang from his mutilated body as Wrath sliced him open.  Twice for Lan Fan, and the pained, worried look in her eyes whenever she glances at him nowadays.  A jab for Mei, and her clansmen, who Ling does not know if he can save from their hellish, frustrating poverty.  Another for Ed, and his brother and friends, and all the pain and misery they have gone through.  A kick for his people; for all the pain they have endured, and for all the joy they might – _should_ – soon receive, if his reign goes the way he wants it to.

Every strike sends another bolt of pain up into his head, jarring it and prompting prickles of agony to explode on the inside of his skull.  Every kick or punch only adds fuel to the weak feeling in his arms and legs – a feeling that isn’t caused by his rigorous workout, but rather by whatever illness or ailment has plagued him for all these past few weeks.  But the Emperor doesn’t notice nor care.  The only thing in his world now is his body, a sharply honed weapon filled with all the raw emotions he’s kept bottled up these past months; the punching bag, ready to receive any blow he deals out; and the light of the moon, illuminating his every movement and sending shadows dancing across the walls as he fights.

Movement catches his eye and Ling whips around – the shadows–

The weakened feeling in his limbs suddenly surges at his abrupt movement, leaving his body powerless as the pain in his head spikes.  Black spots rush in at the edges of his vision, and he drops to the floor like a dead body.  The feeling in his limbs returns just in time for him to catch himself before he faceplants by hitting the ground with his forearms with a loud, painful _thud_.  His body sings with pain, consuming him as he pants, trying to get some oxygen back into his lungs.  Slowly, slowly, he regains control over his body.

Shaking his head to let some of the sweat on his face drip off onto the floor, Ling glances up at the wall behind him.  He saw shadows dancing across it, and the sight of it, even out of the corner of his eye, still snapped him from his trance and sent a bolt of fear down through him, cold and real and right to his core.  But now… there is nothing.  The wall is blank, as it always was and as it always will be.

A whimper suddenly escapes from his mouth, and the Emperor has to bite his lip to keep any other sounds from escaping him.  What the hell is _wrong_ with him?  The sight of shadows has never scared him so much before – not since he returned from Amestris, of course.  Since the Promise Day, and Amestris, he’s become a complete wreck – not sleeping, barely spending a waking moment without a headache or the constant guilt stabbing his chest no matter what he does.  And it was all because Greed and Fu died – they left him.

They left him behind.

Ling’s shoulders tremble as the truth hits him once again.  It’s the undeniable fact that seems to taunt him every second of his life.  He’s alone now – the only one he has left is Lan Fan, and she is just as grief-stricken as he is.  Without Greed by his side, and without Fu to guide him, he’s… just the Emperor of Xing, alone for all eternity.

He simply can’t rule, not in the way he wants to, without Greed, or Fu.

_But what other choice do I have?  Do I just hand the throne off to someone else – someone who hasn’t been damaged and weakened as I have, during travels in a faraway land?_

Biting his lip, Ling shakes his head slightly – that’s not the solution, and he knows it.  But then again… if he truly isn’t fit to rule, what with the lack of his two best men at his side coupled with his sudden physical weakness _and_ apparent trauma from his time in Amestris….

Could his country be better off with someone less damaged than Ling Yao?

At this thought, he feels guilt and anxiety and fear and emotions he has no names for explode in his chest, curling and wrapping themselves around his lungs and neck.  Struggling to breathe after this revelation, Ling grounds himself with the pain in his body – until a burst of irritation and dismissiveness spark in the back of his mind, almost in reaction to the idea that he shouldn’t rule.  They act as water to the fire of emotions in his chest, dousing the worst and leaving him feeling torn.  Of course he should rule – this is his dream, everything he’s ever worked for what Fu and Greed _died_ to help him achieve… but if he can’t rule properly, what’s the point?

With agony and misery spawned by his thoughts and consuming his soul, Ling stands and hits the bag again and again and again, until his knuckles bleed scarlet and his lungs sear in his chest and he can’t feel anything at all.

 

~

 

It’s sometime around midnight and, dressed in his finest robes, with guilt and sorrow still clutching his heart even after all these months, Ling knows the time for procrastination has come to an end.

Moonlight paints the world silver and gray, sucking the color from everything as night sleeps over the palace.  With nearly soundless footsteps, the Emperor of Xing walks slowly down the hallway, one eye on the huge spaces between the pillars in the hall that give a spacious view to outside.  Thanks to the gaps, the moonlight that leaks in paints Ling a chilling, colorless gray.  The cool, crisp smells of the evening waft about, and the sounds of night follow his every step.  Not that there _is_ much noise – after all, this is a night for silence, not sound.

Ling swallows down his nervousness.  Even if this is long overdue, and he should’ve gone a while ago, he’s still anxious – and perhaps that’s part of the reason why.  One of the gods might send a lightning bolt to strike him down for his insolence and delay; if they do, he deserves it.  In a futile attempt to make up for his irresponsibility, even by a tiny bit, he dressed himself in the finest robes in his closet without the help of Lan Fan or any of his servants.  Of course, it’s not like it’s going to help much, and it took him _hours_ to put the damn robes on, but it makes him feel a bit better as he approaches his destination.

On impulse, he even brought the Philosopher’s Stone with him; he stopped by the Treasure Room on his way down here to swipe the tiny glass bottle with the semi-liquid red mass inside.  Something about having it clutched tightly in the palm of his hand as he walks closer and closer to his destination makes him feel stronger – somehow, it feels as if Greed is there with him.  When Greed was possessing him, Ling was invincible; now, all he has is the memory of the homunculus, and his mortal body once again.

He gives his head a tiny shake.  As important as Greed was – and still is – to him, it’s not his death that is to be mourned tonight.  No, not his death – but another’s.

Finally, Ling reaches the end of the hall, and faces a worn wooden door.  Steeling himself, the Emperor opens it slowly, cautious of any loud creaking it might make, and steps outside the palace.

Now that he stands fully out in the open, the moon blazes its glorious silver light upon the Emperor, casting his shadow across the world as he crosses the grass at a slow pace.  It takes him a few minutes, but eventually Ling reaches his destination.  He stops and looks down, sorrow filling him to the brim as he opens his mouth and speaks.

“Hello, Fu,” Ling says quietly.

The shrine that lies before him has no answer; the only reply is the soft sounds of night all around them.  Sighing softly, Ling leans over and kneels down before the shrine, his heels tucked under his ass and his hands laying palms-down on the fabric of his pants.  For a moment, he is silent – then, a small smile twists the corners of his mouth up.

“I guess it’s pointless for me to apologize for coming around so late, huh?” he murmurs, closing his eyes as he speaks.  “Even if I am sorry, you’d just tell me not to worry about it, so I’ll move on.”

Ling sighs gently before cracking his eyes open, his tiny, pitiful smile widening.  “First off, you should know – I did it.  I fulfilled my – _our_ dream, and became Emperor.  Lan Fan got me the Philosopher’s Stone before the Chang princess had a chance to grab it, and so now I’m the Emperor of Xing.  Our families will now be protected, and safe for the rest of their lives.”  His smile turns into something real and true before he continues.  “Lan Fan is still by my side, of course – and while she mourns you just as I do, if not more, I do think she’s getting better.  We both are.”

There is silence for another few seconds; then, Ling hums thoughtfully, his head tipping slightly sideways.  “Aside from that, being Emperor is… harder than I thought, honestly.  It’s taxing, for sure, and all the officials are breathing down my neck all hours of the day, but… I believe I can handle a little stress, for the sake of my people.”

Suddenly, Ling laughs, the sound of it hopeless and a tad bitter.  “Man, look at the kind of person I’m growing into.  You would be proud of me, Fu; I know it.  I’m so different from the bratty little kid you met all those years ago.  Of course, I’m not quite as wise as you yet, but hopefully I’ll get there someday.”

He is quiet for a moment, the sounds of the night fading into near-silent background noise, before the turmoil filling up his mind spills from his mouth in quiet, despairing words.

“I just–”  Ling’s voice breaks, all pretenses of calm happiness disappearing in a flash.  His voice drops into near-silence as he takes his deepest, most desperate desire and whispers it to the dead.  “I just wish you were here – you and Greed both.”

A sudden thought strikes him, and Ling gives another short laugh, as sad and bitter as the first.  “Oh, that’s right – you don’t know.  On the Promise Day, Greed… well, he died.  To save me, just like you.  Only you died before him, so I guess you wouldn’t know about that, huh?  Anyways… I guess now that Greed saved me, you and Lan Fan can’t hate him anymore, right?”

Ling sighs again, his head dropping.  His chest aches as he continues.

“In all honesty, I would give anything to have you back at my side – you and Greed both.  I… I _need_ you, both of you, so I can rule this country properly.  Without the two of you, I feel… lost,” Ling whispers, the words dragged from him slowly, like shards of glass from a bloody wound.  “I need you two supporting me, giving me advice and staying loyal to me no matter what.  I need you two to be alive, more than anything in the world.”

Slowly, as if his body is moving by itself, Ling reaches down and tucks the tiny bottle containing the Philosopher’s Stone behind one of the many unlit candles in front of the shrine.  “If anything, I can ask you to watch that for me – please,” he whispers.

Agonizing sorrow rises up to clutch his soul, and his hand flies to his mouth as his shoulders tremble.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, unable to offer anything more.  “I’m sorry, Fu, I’m _sorry_ … I’m so sorry….”

As he speaks the words that have choked him for weeks, Ling barely has time to register the multiple chi around him before a cold, damp cloth is pressed over his mouth and the world started spinning, and a sigh that comes from him but is not his own echoes in his ears before he fades away into the darkness.

 

~

 

Ling has absolutely no clue what time it is, but he _does_ know that the ropes tying his hands are starting to chafe, and that the bag stuffed over his head smells like shit.

A bump in the road launches the Emperor of Xing into the air and lands him hard on his ass.  With an extremely pathetic whine of pain and annoyance, Ling sniffs heatedly under his bag and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible.  Most of his expensive robes have been stripped away, leaving him freezing and vulnerable.  However, with the knowledge that he’s being kidnapped, and will possibly be tortured very, very soon, it’s hard to feel anything other than fear and frustration.  Luckily for Ling, his endlessly bright and hopeful personality – or annoying as hell, as Ed called it – might come in handy in finding a way to distract himself on the long ride to what was probably going to be hell, or some variation of it.  Even if he’s been feeling less like himself lately, putting on a mask has always been one of his specialties.  Especially around strangers, and even more so when he couldn’t give less of a shit what they think of him.

Plus, his head has resumed aching again: a harsh pounding at his temples, almost enough to make his eyes water.  If there’s anything that can cheer him up, it’ll be annoying a few goons into getting pissed off.  Of course, that might land him with some extra lacerations during the torture session that undoubtedly awaits him, but in Ling’s pain-hazy mind, it’s worth it.  Probably.

Making his voice as high-pitched, loud, and unbelievably whiny as possible, Ling wails in Xingese, “Are we _theeeere_ yet?”

There’s a snort somewhere to his right, and what sounds like someone’s foot shifting to his left.  Ling immediately catches onto both sounds, processing and identifying them in his head.  Two people, as far as he can tell right now; there are most likely more.  And, because his head is still swimming too much to properly detect their chi, there’s only one way to find out.

Groaning loudly, Ling kicks his legs out, acting as much as he can like a fussy, annoying baby (surprisingly, it isn’t too hard, given his miserable circumstances), as he cries, “I’m _huuungry!_   I want some food!”

No replies or noises.  Wait – a faint scraping sound, right in front of him.  Good; that means there are at least three.  Hold on; no, that’s bad.  Very bad.  He’s tied up and his head is covered in a bag and he’s in the back of a truck with three undoubtedly armed men and/or women.  Even worse is the fact that he has no idea where he is, nor how long he was unconscious, which means he could be days away from the palace by now.  The bottom line is, his chances of escaping aren’t great – and even if he _does_ escape, he’ll have no idea where to go.

Ling opens his mouth again, ready to order them to give him some food, when his head gives another throb – this one far more intense than the rest.  He unwillingly hisses in pain, leaning over slightly as he waits for the sharp, throbbing agony to pass.  It usually takes only a few moments for these sharp bursts to calm; and so, trying not to give away the irritating pain he’s in, Ling waits for the aching to fade.

It doesn’t.

Instead, the muscles in his arms and shoulders twitch involuntarily, and his heart flutters painfully in his chest.  In his stomach, around the left side of it, there’s a sudden ache, fiery and excruciating.  Ling gasps out loud, his shoulders hunching in as his body aches and smarts and trembles.  Dimly, he hears something shift near his right, and knows that at least one of the people in the back of the truck have noticed his predicament.

“The hell is up with him?” he hears a male voice say in Xingese.

“Probably just baiting us, tryin’ to escape.  Ignore him,” another male voice replies, a meter or two in front of him.

Ling tries to smirk at the irony of it, but it comes out as a grimace as another throb wracks his body.  He learned as a child that, while being kidnapped, it is always smart to fake being ill, or choking, or _something_ to get the attention of the kidnappers – and to get them as close as possible, making it easier to knock them out or to take one as a hostage to escape.  It’s cruel irony now that Ling is actually in pain while being kidnapped, and the kidnappers think he’s faking it.

The truck shudders and bounces again, some pothole in the road jolting the vehicle and its occupants violently.  Ling grimaces, holding in all of the frustrated curses he wants to hiss as he slams back down on the floor of the truck.  After a few moments of gritting his teeth and trying not to pass out from the jabbing pain in his body, Ling slowly realizes that there’s something wet on his hand.  Or, more specifically, he can feel the fabric of his glove sticking to his left hand, in a way that tells him it’s wet with something.  Ling frowns and thinks back; the past few times the truck bounced, has his hand caught on anything and gotten torn open?  He can’t feel any pain in it… is something dripping on it?

Twisting his spine painfully, the ache in his head almost-but-not-quite forgotten, Ling cranes his head to try and catch a glimpse of his hand past the edge of the bag stuffed loosely on his head.  Squinting in the darkness, he can barely make out his hands, tied together tightly with coarse rope behind his back.  He sees his right hand, bare and plain; his left hand, however, while being covered in its usual glove, now has something else standing out on the smooth white fabric.  It’s something very dark – whatever color it is, Ling can’t tell, not without a proper source of light – and looks liquid.  As he stares, he both sees and feels a drop of whatever the dark stuff is trickle down one of his fingers and drip onto the floor without making a sound.

His head throbs again, and he twists back around, squinting in pain.  It doesn’t really matter what that is, anyways.  Even if it _is_ blood, he’s probably going to be bleeding a lot soon anyways, so what does it matter?

Another throb simultaneously travels through his head and stomach, and he groans, hunching over even more as any thoughts of his hand fly from his mind.  What in the hell is _wrong_ with him?  In his whole life, Ling has _never_ had random dizzy spells, or abrupt, searing headaches, or sudden weakness in his limbs.  It makes absolutely no sense; for the past few months, ever since he left Amestris, this has been happening to him.  Ever since he–

Ling stops, his entire body going cold.

It hasn’t been since he left Amestris – no.  It’s been ever since he lost _Greed_.

The answer has been _sitting_ there, the entire time.  Of _course_ that makes sense; going from having a near-immortal body with hundreds of souls and two main consciousnesses in it to having just Ling’s soul must have caused some kind of strain on his body.  That makes perfect sense.  But… it’s been _months_ since he left Amestris.  Why are the headaches and dizzy spells continuing – and getting worse, at that?  His body should’ve recovered by now, right?  What’s wrong with him?  Why is he still sick?

And then, Ling’s heart stops, but not because of his revelation – no.

It’s because, deep inside of him, he thought he heard a sound, deep and new and familiar and beautiful.  At first the Emperor is sure he imagined it – it isn’t real, it isn’t, it _can’t_ be – but before he can dismiss it, the sound rings out again.

A low chuckle, amused and arrogant and the most beautiful thing Ling has ever heard in his life.

And then follows another sound Ling was positive he would never hear again – but it’s a sound he welcomes nonetheless.

_“Hey, brat.  I’ll explain everything later, but for now, I’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind.”_

Ling smiles, soft and true, and accepts the darkness that comes and sweeps his consciousness away with open arms.

 

 

In the back of that crappy truck, headed on its way to only the gods know where, none of the three guards take notice as the skin on the young Emperor’s hands harden over, covered in a dark gray shell, with claws sharp enough to kill them all in one swipe.  They don’t notice as he easily cut off the ropes on his borrowed body’s wrists, letting them fall silently to the ground, unseen and unheard.  Nor do they notice as he pull the white glove, now stained with black ink, off his left hand – revealing a dark maroon version of the same tattoo the black ink was trying to imitate.  They don’t see the Emperor open his eyes under the bag on his head, and therefore they don’t catch the flash of his cat-slitted magenta eyes, bright and thirsty for blood.  They don’t take notice as he grins slowly, dangerously, with pointed teeth straight from a nightmare, and begins to chuckle, low and dark.  He chuckles, because they don’t notice.

Neither the three guards nor the driver of the truck notice in time, because Death takes them with a swipe of diamond-hard claws and laughter worthy of a demon before they can even blink.

 

~

 

Ling opens his eyes to the soft sounds of night, the smooth gentleness of his silk sheets under his body, and the stickiness of dried blood on his fingers.

Shifting slightly, he can tell by both the feel and the smell of it that his arms and most of his clothes are covered in blood as well.  The dark liquid has stiffened his robes – or whatever remained of them – and paint his arms a brownish-red color.  He knows the blood will be nearly impossible to get out of his robes, and that washing it off of his arms and hands will take a tremendous effort.  But Ling doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care in the slightest.  The only thing  Ling cares about right now is the low, amused chuckling resonating from inside his mind, his body.  A sound he never thought he would hear again, not for the rest of his life.  A sound the Emperor still has the vaguest notion that he might be imagining.  That would be an appropriate answer – it was all a hallucination.  But then again… the voice from before, the blood on his clothes, his own bed under his body, and the kidnappers that are almost certainly dead now – that isn’t a hallucination.

Ling’s mouth trembles as it opens.  There are so many questions on his tongue, so many answers he needs to hear, and realizations he needs established as fact.  He has no idea what to say, but as his mouth opens, it formed a single word – the first question to which he needs an answer.  No, not really a question – something simpler.  An inquiry, with the desperate need for some kind of confirmation that he isn’t going absolutely insane.

His voice shakes ever so slightly as he speaks.

“Greed?”

Deep inside the Emperor, there’s a snort of annoyance; endearingly irritated and absolutely beautiful.

“ _Who else were you expecting?_ ”

The air vanishes from his lungs.  For a moment, Ling has to focus on breathing, if only to prevent himself from passing out from shock.  He takes a minute to think a little more, to cope with the fact that he is not, in fact, delusional – although he isn’t really all that surprised by this revelation.  Somehow, despite his sorrow after Greed and Fu died, this feels… strangely _right_ , like he’s been waiting for this to happen for a long time now.  Finally, after a few minutes, another question rises to the Emperor’s lips – another very simple one that needs an answer as soon as possible.

“How?”

Greed huffs, almost in annoyance; another sound that knocks the air out of Ling’s lungs.  “ _How many times do I gotta tell you: don’t sweat the small stuff, brat._ ”

Ling waits.

Sensing the Emperor’s patience, Greed groans.  “ _Alright, alright,_ fine…. _Well, I guess I should start back at the beginning.  Remember the battle at Central Command?_ ”

Ling nods; how could he ever forget that day of destruction and loss, of heartbreak and joy and death?  The day Ling, among many others – including Greed himself – came together to save the corrupt and crumbling country of Amestris, and the souls of its innocent citizens.  The day he lost one of his most loyal vassals, along with the greatest friend he ever had.  His gut tightens, and he waits for Greed to continue.

“ _And remember when Father jumped at us like a crazy bastard, and stuck his hand in our gut to suck out my Philosopher’s Stone – and took me along with it?_ ” Greed asks, a hint of still-lingering resentment in his voice.

“Yeah,” Ling rasps, wincing slightly as his mind automatically replays that memory – the pain of having someone’s hand stabbed into his flesh, and the infinitely greater pain of Greed’s first and last lie just before he disappeared forever.  Then, afterwards; the awful, agonizing _emptiness_ that crashed down on Ling following the moment Greed’s soul was sucked from his body.

“ _Then Lan Fan cut off Father’s hand, right?_ ”

Ling nods again.  At Greed’s own command, she did it, severing Ling and Greed forever.  Or it seemed to, at the time.

“ _Well… the thing is, when I told her to come cut off that asshole’s hand, I don’t think… well, I hadn’t completely been sucked into Father yet,_ ” Greed mutters grudgingly.  “ _Of course, even I didn’t realize it at the time, but when Lan Fan cut off the old bastard’s hand, part of me was left in you.  A really tiny part, but a part of me nevertheless._ ”

Realization slowly dawns on Ling; that’s exactly what he needs to hear.  He starts to open his mouth to add on, but–

“ _Hold on, I’m not done yet, brat,_ ” Greed growls.  “ _Now, where was I?  Oh, yeah… anyways, when that little part of me was left in you, I think… well, I wasn’t conscious most of the time, but for the past few months, ever since Father was destroyed, I’m almost positive that I’ve been unconsciously feeding off your soul’s energy, gaining enough strength to fully come back to consciousness._ ”

And with that, all the pieces click into place.

“The headaches, and sudden dizziness…” Ling wonders out loud, realizing at last.

“ _Yep._ ”  He can feel Greed nodding, somehow.  “ _That was from me tapping into your soul’s energy.  My constant interference was most likely causing you all kinds of trouble.  Of course, I wasn’t doing it on purpose; it’s just my nature._ ”

“To take everything for yourself,” Ling murmurs, a hint of fondness in his voice.  Then, a memory strikes him – one from weeks and weeks ago – and he blinks.

“So, that one terrible nightmare I had a few weeks back – was that you who yelled and woke me up?”

“ _Uh-huh, that was all me–_ ”

“And wait, when I got kidnapped just then – that was you I heard sighing?”

“ _Still can’t_ believe _you got yourself kidnapped_ –”

“And then in the truck – that was you, wasn’t it?”

“ _Damn straight,_ ” Greed says proudly.  A comfortable silence settles over them for a moment before the homunculus speaks again, the slightest hint of hesitation in his tone.  “ _And, uh… about your tattoo–_ ”

Ling gasps, loud and abrupt enough that Greed stops talking, and immediately brings his left hand up to his face.  It’s – it’s there.  Instead of the black imitation, the dark maroon ouroboros has returned in Greed’s wake, proud and true.  Ling stares at it happily, joy rising up in him like a typhoon.  This all still feels like some kind of dream, like he’s going to blink and Greed will disappear into the void yet again.  But then – wait.  Ling frowns, his happiness temporarily forgotten as he stares closer at his hand.  All over the back of it, apart from the blood, is something else, dried there… something darker than blood….

“ _Ah – yeah,_ ” Greed interrupts Ling’s staring, sounding the tiniest bit sheepish.  “ _When I fully came back, your ouroboros was sort of… uh, kicked out?  Mine took its place, basically.  So, unless you want the old fake one back…._ ”

Realizing the question that Greed is clumsily trying to phrase, Ling laughs, the sound of it prompting a noise of surprise and confusion from the homunculus.  “Don’t be ridiculous, Greed.  There’s no way I’m kicking you out now.  Sure, you’ve caused me all kinds of trouble, but… I’ve had to spend far too much time without you to be capable of wishing you gone now.”

He can feel Greed’s relief as the homunculus snorts disinterestedly.  “ _Good, ’cause I’m here to stay.  There’s no way you’re getting rid of me now, especially since I went through all the trouble to come back to life.  Plus, you finally became Emperor of this giant-ass country; how am I supposed to leave now?  I’m not, that’s how._ ”

“Yeah,” Ling agrees, smiling softly.  All the headaches and dizzy spells in the past few months have been a constant annoyance and an infuriating mystery, but now… now, it feels like a small price to pay to get his dearest friend back.  He’s back – Greed is _alive_.  His vision blurs slightly, and he rushes to wipe his eyes, the slightest feeling of embarrassment rising up inside him.

Greed makes a noise of disgust.  “ _God, don’t tell me that you’re_ crying _, are you?_ ” he groans.

“Of course not,” Ling replies, smiling ever so slightly as he composes himself.  After all, in light of a miracle such as this, it would be inappropriate to shed tears.

Greed grunts in disbelief.  “ _Right, right…. Anyways, now I’ve got some questions for you, moron._ ”

Ling raises an eyebrow, smiling at the intrigue.  “Oh?  And what would you like to know?”

“ _A lot of things – I_ have _been gone for a few months, you know,_ ” Greed growls, irritation plain in his voice.  “ _Like, how hard was it to become Emperor?  What happened to Lan Fan, and that tiny brat with the cat?  What happened to Ed – oh yeah, is his brother okay?  And what about everyone else in Amestris?  Was Father finally defeated?_ ”

“All right, all right, slow down there,” Ling interrupts, chuckling at Greed’s thinly-veiled eagerness.  “Well, to start, Ed defeated Father almost right after you disappeared.  It wasn’t that hard, thanks to you turning his body to charcoal and everything.  After he was gone, Ed decided to give up his power to use alchemy in exchange for his brother’s body and soul.”

Greed snorts.  “ _I dunno whether to call him brave, stupid, or the best brother in the world._ ”

“I know; I feel the same way,” Ling laughs, catching the slightest tone of fondness in Greed’s voice.  “I even offered him Philosopher’s Stone that Lan Fan got, so he could use it to get Al back; but naturally, he refused.”

“ _Okay, then: stupid it is,_ ” Greed mutters.

“Come on, you know that you won’t find a more stubborn person than Ed anywhere on the planet,” Ling replies, raising an eyebrow.

“ _Yeah, yeah, you’ve got that right; now get on with the story, brat._ ”

Ling hums.  “After all that, becoming Emperor wasn’t all that hard, to be honest.  I left Amestris on the Promise Day with Lan Fan and Mei, and met with the previous Emperor as soon as I arrived in Xing.  I showed him the Philosopher’s Stone, and explained what it was and how it worked.  He was awestruck, of course, that I had managed to find such a thing – and with Lan Fan and the Chang heir to back up my claim, it was impossible to deny that I had found the best prize to present to His Majesty.  He immediately boosted my clan’s rank and declared me his undisputed heir.  Unsurprisingly, two days later, he died as a result of his declining health.”

“ _Well, that certainly is convenient for you.  So, you sure no one gave him a little nudge out along the way?_ ” Greed asks, mischief sharp in his words.

Ling frowns at the implication.  “I didn’t send Lan Fan or anyone else to kill the Emperor, if that’s what you’re saying.  I’m not _that_ foolishly desperate.”

“ _All right, all right, if you say so._ ”

“Anyways… As I was saying, as soon as the Emperor passed away, I was prepared to take his place as ruler.  I’ve been Emperor for three months now, and most of my time has been spent either trying to even out the balance of power between the nation’s fifty clans or, well, trying not to pass out,” Ling continues, sighing slightly.  “And… well, that’s about it.  Lan Fan has been by my side this whole time, basically keeping me from falling on my face all hours of the day.  Mei comes in and out, mostly looking for news on her clan’s status.  I’ve been sick, but no one’s noticed it – at least, no one of high enough rank to get me booted off the throne.  Things have been good, for now.”

“ _So what you’re saying is life has been pretty uneventful,_ ” Greed comments.

“If you call becoming Emperor of Xing, crossing a giant desert, almost dying, and getting kidnapped _uneventful_ ,” Ling scoffs, crossing his arms indignantly.

Greed smirks inside him.  “ _Well, it’s certainly not as interesting as stopping the plot of an evil homunculus, saving the souls of all the citizens of a giant country, and destroying Central Command, is it?  And that all happened in a single day!_ ”

“Sorry my life isn’t more _interesting_ , Greed,” Ling growls, his voice filled with good-natured annoyance.  Then, in a flash, his expression switches back to solemnity.  “Anyways, now I’ve got another question for you – and you’ve gotta answer seriously.”

Greed raises an eyebrow inside him questioningly.  “ _Shoot,_ ”

Ling hesitates, before jumping right into it.  Better to cut to the chase than dance around it.  “Do you still want to be Emperor with me – or rather, do you still want to be a _part_ me while I’m Emperor?  Is that really still what you want?”

There’s a long stretch of silence as Greed contemplates this, chewing on the question and deciding his next words very carefully.

“ _On the Promise Day, do you remember making that comment about me not really wanting to be the king of the world?_ ”

Confused, Ling blinks, and then nods as the memory gradually coming back to him.  Ever since Bido – and seeing Greed’s memories of his friends at the Devil’s Nest – Ling knew that fame and power and money weren’t the true desires lying in Greed’s heart.

“ _And… remember what I said after that?  When Ed was beating the crap outta Father, and… I realized what I really wanted?_ ”

“Friends,” Ling says, a smile blooming across his lips.  “You said that you always wanted friends, like the ones who were supporting Ed.”

“ _Yeah, yeah, I know, I know,_ ” Greed mutters gruffly.  “ _Well, since we’ve established that… you know that you’re my friend, right?  Both you and Lan Fan, I guess._ ”

Ling senses Greed’s hesitation as he speaks and frowns a little.  “What’s the point of saying such obvious stuff?  Get to the main idea.”

Greed huffs indignantly, even as Ling feels the pleasure flooding through the homunculus at his words.  “ _Oh, shut it, prince._ ”

“You mean Emperor,” Ling hums smugly.

“ _Oh, whatever!  The point is, now that I know for sure what I really want – and now that I actually have it, in a way – I’ve got no desire to have absolutely everything in the world anymore.  I mean, I still want power; it’s in my nature, after all.  But for now, I’m content with just… well, being by yours and Lan Fan’s sides for as long as I can.   You can have fun being Emperor and all that; I’ll stick with… just… being your friend,_ ” Greed finishes, sounding slightly abashed at his own words.

Ling takes a moment to process this – a part of him expected this, but most of him is shocked.  “….Are you serious?” he finally asks, slightly breathless from astonishment.

“ _Of course I am!  I’m Greed, remember?  I never tell a lie,_ ” Greed growls proudly.

The Emperor raises an eyebrow.  “What about right before you almost-died?  You lied to me then, didn’t you?”

Greed hums.  “ _Well, if you think about it, I didn’t technically lie, did I?  I said I would help you be the Emperor of Xing, right?  Well, here I am._ ”

“You didn’t know you would survive at the time, though,” Ling points out.

“ _Who cares?  It still wasn’t a lie in the long run._ ”

Ling sighs, and thinks for a moment before speaking up again, a new question on his tongue.

“Hey, Greed?”

“ _Hm?_ ”

“I’m still a little confused about something,” Ling confesses.

“ _What is it?_ ”

“What I don’t get is… well, you even said it: since you originated in Father, you gravitated back to him instead of me.  How’d part of you remain in me, despite that?”

Greed remains silent for a moment before he speaks, his voice almost serious.

“ _…Well, it’s like you said, isn’t it?  Friends are bound to each other by their souls or whatever, so of course part of me would come back to you.  I mean, we shared a body for all those months, right?  That probably made some sort of connection between us or something.  And all that stuff aside, you’d have to be crazy to think I’d be satisfied with an ending like that – some heroic sacrifice bullshit.  As if Greed the Avaricious could go out like that!  If you still have a country to be the Emperor of, then I still have a friend to protect, don’t I?  I can’t die when I still have shit to do!_ ”

Ling stares into space for a second, contemplating this, before managing a smile and a nod.

“Yeah,” he whispers, his voice quivering.  “I guess you’re right.”

He feels Greed smirking, and senses his endless sureness and avarice welling up and supporting Ling’s own feelings of joy and pride.  “ _So, you ready to really rule this country, partner?_ ”

Ling nods, confidence filling his body as an idea comes into his mind.  “Absolutely!  But first, there’s something that we’ve gotta do….”

 

~

 

It’s the dawn of a new day, the sun painting the horizon oranges and pinks and soft pastel colors, and Ling Yao is, at long last, completely at peace.

At his side, a steady constant in his insane life, stands Lan Fan, a soft smile on her face and the colors of the sunrise shining on her automail arm.  He catches her eye, and her smile turns hesitant as she meets his gaze.  Ling knows that she’s still cautious about what they’re about to do, but he’s confident.  It will work; he knows it will, and he absolutely can’t wait for it to happen.

A week ago, when Lan Fan found him after he was kidnapped by renegades, and then kinda-sorta rescued by Greed, she almost had a heart attack – out of shock, worry, and absolute fury.  Ling couldn’t exactly blame her; she found him lying in his bed, covered in blood as he talked to himself and cried softly.  She nearly broke his back hugging him, rattling off questions asking about his wellbeing as she squeezed him – until Greed forcefully took over and yelled at her to stop, scaring the living shit out of her yet again.  Before Lan Fan had a chance to lose her mind, start screaming, or try and kill him, Ling took back control over his body and explained the whole situation as quickly as possible.

Once Lan Fan understood, Ling explained his plan to both her and Greed.  His vassal was all for it, but Greed had mixed feelings.  On one hand, he was concerned that he wouldn’t as much power as Ling did, since he wouldn’t have the body of an Emperor anymore.  On the other hand, he wasn’t really as concerned with having power anymore – not as much as he was with getting something that he hadn’t had in a long time.  Plus, having new things that he’d previously lost (twice now, in this case) was something the homunculus always enjoyed.  In the end, he agreed to do it – and Ling can tell that Greed is happy with his choice.

Ling looks inside himself, feeling the impatience of the waiting homunculus.  “You ready?” he murmurs, so that Lan Fan knows who he’s talking to.

Greed snorts.  “ _I’ve been ready for days – let’s get on with this already._ ”

Ling nods, excitement flooding through him, and steps forward.

Laid out before the Emperor and his vassal is a scene that any would find disturbing if they walked in on it at the moment.  Thankfully, Ling ordered his quarters off-limits for the entire day, the punishment for walking in being death (not that he would actually carry through with that, of course).  Considering what they’re about to do, it’s a very good thing he said that.  On the wooden floor of his bedroom, etched in white chalk, is an enormous transmutation circle.  In all honesty, Ling has absolutely no clue what it’s supposed to do, but Greed snapped instructions at him until it was completed, insisting all the while that it’s essential to their plan.  Set in various places around the circumference of the transmutation circle, for no reason other than aesthetic and dramatic effect, are candles.  They illuminate the room with a soft golden glow, and when combined with the colors of the sunrise behind them, the room is lit up with a beautiful array of colors that would make an artist cry.  Lastly, lying in the middle of the transmutation circle is a body.

“ _Alright; you know what to do, right?_ ” Greed asks, a rare lack of sarcasm in his voice.

“I know what to do; we went over it so many times I’d have to be braindead not to,” Ling replies.

“ _Then get on with it!_ ”

“I am!”  Carefully, Ling steps around the chalk of the transmutation circle – if he messes up even one of the strange markings around its edge, they’ll have to redraw it – and kneels carefully beside the body in the center.

It isn’t a real human body – not yet, anyways – but rather, a dummy that was created through alkahestry.  After taking a few days to study the properties of the human body, Ling used all his powers as Emperor to their full advantage.  He gathered the skin of a pig, the organs and muscles from various animals that resembled those of a human, and a multitude of bones for their fake body.  They grabbed a brain from a dead human body, too – with permission from the family under the guise of studying it for scientific purposes, of course – and the materials were nearly all gathered.  Ling also decided to make a last-minute call to Ed to see if they really had all the materials to make a new human body – and, after enduring Ed’s rant about how wrong human transmutation was followed by Ling’s reassurance that that wasn’t what he was doing, the Emperor finally confirmed that he had all the necessary materials he needed to make a human body.

After that, it was just a matter of procuring an alkahestrian who would swear on their life to keep their mouth shut as they slowly and carefully transmuted all the materials together to form a faux human body.  Once it was ready, the time had come.

To start, Ling pulls from his pocket the small glass bottle containing the Philosopher’s Stone.  At Greed’s order, he went and retrieved it from Fu’s shrine, stopping to tell his deceased vassal the good news as well.  While they were there, Greed also confirmed that it was him who had momentarily taken control over Ling’s body and hid the Philosopher’s Stone – for he’d sensed the presence of the kidnappers far before Ling did.

Now, Ling gently pulls the cork out of the bottle and tips the bottle upside-down over the body.  The Stone slowly slips out – right onto the cut in the chest that Ling made before.  The red liquid immediately slithers inside the break in the skin, disappearing into the flesh.

“ _Okay, now we have to move fast,_ ” Greed commands.

“Right,” Ling replies, feeling stronger than he has in ages.  Swiftly, he pulls out a short knife from his pocket and, with a flick of his wrist, slices a shallow cut open on the palm of his left hand.  Blood immediately begins to drip from it – but the sight of it doesn’t send a single bolt of fear through Ling.  Instead, he smiles, and retreats into himself for a last goodbye.

His soul floats in a great white space, before an enormous red face straight out of a nightmare – one that he knows well at this point.

Greed smirks at him.  “ _Come to say goodbye, have you?_ ”

“How could I not?” Ling chuckles, smiling at his friend.

“ _You’ll see me soon enough, brat,_ ” Greed replies, “ _now get out of the circle, or you’ll screw it all up._ ”  With a wink and a swirl of scarlet, he’s gone.

Ling opens his eyes again to see his blood gathering around the cut in the body’s skin before slipping inside after the Philosopher’s Stone.  Glancing at the back of his hand, he sees that the maroon ouroboros is disappearing once again – but this time, instead of staring at it in horror, Ling smiles lightly.

“My lord!” Lan Fan cries out from behind him.  Ling snaps out of his trance to realize – oh, shit, the transmutation has begun.  Red lightning sparks around the edges of the cut in the body, and as Ling watches, the wound seals itself up.  Swearing under his breath, he dances around the chalk transmutation marks, which have started to glow, and hops outside the circle to join Lan Fan.  He presses the cloth she hands to him onto his cut palm as they watches the transmutation begin.

It’s surreal, in all senses of the word.  The skin on the body rapidly gains color, going from an ashy gray to a flushed tan color.  Muscles and internal organs rapidly build themselves under the skin, causing it to stretch and swell.  Eyes grow in the empty sockets, and teeth sprout in the mouth like tiny white saplings.  Hair, black as night, sprouts from the scalp, flopping over the face with incredibly impressive bangs that look rather familiar.  Fingernails and toenails grow at the fingers and toes – and then, a laugh springs from the mouth.

Greed stands in his new body, slowly turning to face them with a smile on his face.  His teeth are pointed, Ling noticed, and his eyes are magenta – with slitted pupils.  The ouroboros now rests on the back of his hand, in all its brilliant maroon glory.  And, seeing as he’s facing them with full-frontal nudity, Ling can’t help but notice that Greed has given himself – well, there’s no other way to say it other than a generously sized dick.

“Boy, that was painful,” he laughs, and dammit, he even _sounds_ the same.  Ling’s heart swells as Lan Fan steps forward, handing Greed the robes they brought with them.  She takes care to keep her eyes on his face, Ling notices.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Greed says, flashing her a grin.  Lan Fan pins him with a stare as she turns and walks back to Ling’s side – though she has her own small smile as well.

Ling can’t stop staring at Greed as the homunculus puts on his clothes.  Slowly, a smile blooms on his face, wider and brighter than any before as he notices something that makes his heart ache with love for this ridiculous homunculus.

“You look just like me.”

The homunculus grunts vaguely in confusion and then, after feeling his own face and running a hand through his hair, gives a groan of annoyance – though its authenticity is debatable.  “Ah, dammit.  I totally didn’t mean to look like you, you idiot,” he mutters half-heartedly, only a hint of a scowl on his face.

The Emperor fights back his smile from growing wider.  “Of course not.”

Greed hmphs in reply and, as he finishes putting on his robes, gives the Emperor another smirk.  “So, you ready to get started?”

Ling’s replying smile is the strongest he’s ever worn as he takes in the two people before him – the homunculus from Amestris and the vassal from his clan in Xing.  The two best friends he could ever have, and the two best qualified to help him rule his country.

“You know it – let’s go.”

 

~

 

The Emperor of Xing is happy.

This isn’t any sort of surprise, of course; ever since the Yao heir started his reign as Emperor one year ago, it quickly became evident to the other occupants of the palace – and to everyone in the country – that he is fond of smiling.  He smiles at his loyal vassal, who accompanies him everywhere with her gleaming automail arm.  He smiles at the servants who bring him food and help him get dressed in his yards and yards of robes in the morning.  He smiles at the Chang heir whenever she comes to visit, though she never looks quite as happy to be in _his_ presence.  And he smiles whenever he spars with his vassal, dodging blows and swinging with his sword, as if he is never as alive as when his hand grips a blade.

However, the people of Xing aren’t blind.  At the start of his rule, for the first few months that he reigns over them, many notice that the smiles on Ling Yao’s face look somewhat… forced.  There is a kind of tenseness to his face and the way he moves that doesn’t sit well with his subjects.  Even his loyal vassal, despite the emotionless countenance she usually wears, is seen casting the Emperor worried glances every once in a while.  It becomes evident that whatever happened to the Yao heir while he was in Amestris, it left some kind of a mark on him – one that will not fade easily.

There are other rumors as well – servants’ whispers that the Emperor is having terrible nightmares and will sleep infrequently.  An alkahestrian’s remark that the Emperor’s vassal comes to her regularly for medicine that helps with headaches.  A tattoo artist’s insistence that the Emperor himself came to have a strange mark inked on the back of his hand  Some of the army’s generals who comment that the Emperor seems to be near falling asleep during every meeting they have.  As the weeks go by, it becomes abundantly clear to most that Emperor Yao is suffering in some way, and they can only hope that he will get better over time.

And then, three or so months into his rule, the Emperor’s new vassal appears.

As soon as the Emperor announces his new vassal to the palace, practically beaming while doing so, a significant amount of mystery and confusion immediately surrounds him.  For starters, according to the Emperor, he met the man while in Amestris – which certainly explains his thick accent as he speaks clumsy Xingese – but it doesn’t offer any explanation for the Emperor’s weak excuse that he has only just arrived at the palace.  Nobody inquires as to why the new vassal didn’t just travel with the Emperor when he and his party left Amestris, but the question remains on everyone’s minds nonetheless.

The new vassal also never removes his mask, and its strange design, with long lines and pointed teeth and slash-like eyes, sends a shiver down the spine of anyone who sees it.  A few servants who have come close to him and caught a glimpse at his face through his mask report that his eyes aren’t any less strange than the rest of him – apparently, they’re magenta, with slitted, catlike pupils.  His voice, with its odd Amestrian accent, is loud and grating, usually blasting sarcastic remarks or snarky comments to His Majesty.  Upon hearing the new vassal speak, most of the palace’s servants and other occupants are dumbfounded by his rudeness to the Emperor; however, His Majesty’s only reply to most of his liege’s comments is laughter or a smile – or a cunning reply of his own.

Then, there’s the matter of his chi.  Whenever any of the other princes or princesses of Xing visit – all of whom are trained in the art of detecting chi – they all stiffen upon meeting the Emperor’s new vassal.  The most extreme reaction of all was been Princess Chang – she stared at the vassal for a solid ten seconds, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, before screaming out loud.  Out of fear or shock or something else, no one is quite sure; the Emperor and both his vassals ushered her away to his chambers to talk after that.  Eventually, it becomes known exactly what is so strange about the vassal: apparently, his chi is foul, and it has the feeling of a multitude of other souls trapped inside of it, as if he swallowed the souls of many other people.  This is, to say the least, alarming to the people of the palace – but every time anyone tries to ask Emperor Yao about the new vassal’s strange chi, he merely waves it off with a smile or a laugh, saying that it is nothing to be concerned about.

There’s also the commonly known fact that the new vassal likes to… well, he seems to enjoy stealing.  He’s constantly seen nabbing random items around the palace, such as utensils, weapons from the Emperor’s sparring room, nice flowers from vases, and pretty much anything he can get his hands on.  Whenever anyone brave enough asks him what he’s doing, or politely asks him to stop, the vassal only says, “It’s all mine anyways, so bug off!”.  As for the Emperor, he only grins whenever he sees his new vassal squirreling away knickknacks into his pockets.  Or sometimes, if it’s an item of particular importance, he scolds him, saying stuff like, “I don’t care if it’s ‘in your nature’, put it back!”, with a scowl on his face.  Not that the new vassal usually listens to him.

Thanks to all these facts and rumors, over the first month subsequent to the new vassal’s arrival, there’s such general talk and worry about his mysteriousness and strangeness that word is bound to reach the Emperor at some point.  Some of the palace occupants are wary of the vassal; others remain confused by him.  Almost everyone is scared of him – scared that he’s a spy from Amestris, scared that he might be there to assassinate their Emperor, scared that he’s some kind of monster in human skin, scared that he’s going to steal one of their precious artifacts, scared that he might hurt someone.  And, as everyone goes round and round in their cycle of worry and fear and suspicion, they all miss one important thing.

After months of weariness and sleeplessness and forced smiles, Emperor Yao is finally, finally happy.

It’s the little things they notice first – the way he laugh, the sound of it pure and true, when the new vassal mutters something undoubtedly vulgar to him.  The light grins he offers to the people who pass him by in the hallways, true and free, so different from the tight smiles he put on a month ago.  The fierce grin that rises on his face, looking for all the world like most natural expression possible on him, when he spars with the new vassal – even after hours of sweating and brawling and bruising, it’s amazing and wondrous that he can smile with as much wildly unrestrained joy as that.  And as the people of Xing slowly watch their new Emperor come back to life, the cause of his revival becomes a common epiphany.

It’s the new vassal – somehow, this strange masked man, with his Amestrian accent and vulgar words and poisoned chi and the air of mysteriousness and strangeness that surrounds him – it was his arrival that pulled the Emperor out of his troubles.  People realize this when they notice that whenever he’s around the new vassal, the Emperor is undeniably cheerful.  A wide smile is always on his face, and he seems to look over at the vassal a lot, as if making sure he’s still there.

It isn’t just the Emperor’s cheeriness around the vassal, though – it’s undeniable to everyone that Ling Yao has the highest, most absolute trust in his new vassal.  The Emperor casually leans on him whenever he complains about being tired or hungry, earning a stinging reply from the man.  He teases the vassal and lets him shove him back, without any fear that his liege might actually harm him.  He shares dinners with both his new vassal and his loyal one, all three of them joking and laughing like a strange little family.  There’s even a rumor that the Emperor was seen sleeping on a couch with his head in the new vassal’s lap.  The latter, apparently, was too busy drawing a mustache and other much cruder drawings on the Emperor of Xing’s face to notice a servant catching a glimpse of the scene.

Aside from that, it’s abundantly clear that the new vassal is very precious to the Emperor.  Apparently, the Emperor fought tooth and nail to keep the man by his side and have him serve as his vassal.  Once, a brave servant dared to go up to Emperor Yao and ask him – how did a strange man from Amestris with a poisonous chi become the Emperor of Xing’s most dependable friend and ally?  And how did the strange vassal earned his absolute trust, especially while he’s so suspicious?

Upon hearing this, Ling Yao merely smiled softly – a true smile, the smile of a ruler, an Emperor – and replied, “Well, it’s as they say; nothing is impossible, right?”

At these words, the loyal vassal nodded solemnly, and the new vassal smirked in delight, smacking the Emperor hard on the shoulder when he walked back over to them.  Just the sight of all three of them, walking through the halls of the palace together, mutual trust and love and happiness enveloping the atmosphere around the trio… it was clear that nothing could split the Emperor and his two most precious vassals apart.  Despite the strangeness of their relationship, nothing could break the bond between those three.

And the people of Xing are perfectly okay with this.  After all, as the Emperor said, nothing is impossible – not even a strange, greedy man from Amestris beating death and befriending a prince of Xing.

**Author's Note:**

> (clenches fist) fuckin LOVE friendship
> 
> like i said, the fmab ending is basically perfect, but the idea of greed and lan fan serving as emperor ling's vassals together is too good for me to resist. giving greed his own body makes no sense but i don't give a shit, i'm having fun and my beta loved it so whatever!!!!!!!!
> 
> i'll give this another read-through tomorrow, i just wanted to finally get it out today lmao. i have a scene or two in mind i might write and add on in a series (along with a mini sort of sequel maybe?) but who knows. i'm so deep in one piece and jjba hell rn that it wouldn't be for a hot sec or so.
> 
> anyways if you like this drop me a comment!! it can be as short as u want, i don't care!!! otherwise i won't know u liked it!!!! also come visit me on the hellsite aka [tungle](http://aces-of-academia.tumblr.com/), i'm doing one piece art there now and also i might post some fmab stuff, who knows
> 
> speaking of fma stuff, [here's](http://feelmetal-alchemist.tumblr.com/post/80803983873/wecansexy-lined-and-colored-kels-sketch-cause) [some](http://tfw-no-tennis.tumblr.com/post/96405624861/shelbycragg-this-town-aint-big-enough-for-the) [art](http://tfw-no-tennis.tumblr.com/post/126994764066/the-queen-of-dorks-love-blossoms) that captures the ending of this fic pretty well imo


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